Title of Book "Island of a Thousand Mirrors"

How do you think the author decided on the title of this book? Island of a Thousand Mirrors?

I don't think I ever had an "aha moment" with this book's title. I think it would be very possible for an English major to write ll sorts of analytical stuff about what the title represents. This might be an interesting question for the author to answer!!

At the beginning of the book(page 8) I noticed the reference to "a tribe of flat silver fish gather in their thousands. To be there is to be surrounded by living shards of light. At a secret signal, all is chaos, a hundred mirrors shattering about him." At the time I could not connect it to anything. After reading the book, I am wondering if the thousands of fish are referencing the thousands of lives that were shattered by the terrible war and deaths that followed. The author also used shattering glass and mirrors else where in the book. When Saraswathi was raped and again the memories of it. (sorry, don't have page numbers for those references)

Mirrors reflect what we see and also what we often don't see. How we see others is often a reflection of who we are rather than who or what we see. The imagery of the beauty of the country is juxtaposed by the cruelty of its warring inhabitants. Both are mirrors. And, the opening description of the British wife and her husband leaving Ceylon mirrors the view of the privileged whites who once lived there. Mirrors reflect what we see and what we want to see. Even the ending is a mirror of what the narrator wants her daughter to see.

It seemed to me that the reference to a thousand mirrors in the title has to do with the fact that there were reflections, actions and reactions from each part of the island that fractured and tore the island apart.