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This paper examines Anuk Arudpragasam's The Story of a Brief Marriage through Giorgio Agamben's concepts of bare life, sovereign power, and the state of exception. Set during the final stages of the Sri Lankan Civil War, the novel portrays the lives of Tamil civilians trapped within a so-called “No Fire Zone,” a space that ostensibly promises protection while exposing its inhabitants to extreme sovereign violence and death. Through a close reading of the experiences of the protagonists, Dinesh and Ganga, this study argues that the novel represents civilians as figures of “homo sacer”. Moreover, drawing upon Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak's concept of the subaltern, the paper explores how war transforms human beings into vulnerable bodies governed by sovereign violence. Particular attention is given to the refugee camp as a space of exception, and to the symbolic significance of marriage as an attempt to reclaim humanity amidst political abandonment.
Miss Ankita Boruah. “Bodies at the Edge of Law: Bare Life, Sovereign Abandonment, and Intimacy in Anuk Arudpragasam’s The Story of a Brief Marriage.” The Criterion: An International Journal in English, vol. 17, no. 3, June 2026, pp. 620-632. DOI, https://doi.org/10.66376/criterion.v17.n3.38.
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