His debut novel The Story of a Brief Marriage was published in 2016 by Flatiron Books/Granta Books and was subsequently translated into French, German, Czech, Mandarin, Dutch and Italian.

[11] The novel, written between 2011 and 2014, describes a day and a night in the lives of two young Tamils, Dinesh and Ganga, who are forced into a marriage as the Sri Lankan army intensifies its bombardment of the camp on the north-eastern coast where they are taking refuge.

"[12] A review in The New York Times commended the novel for "giving the innocents a place in history" and making readers "kneel before the elegance of the human spirit".

"[14] Novelist Colm Toibin praised Arudpragasam's dense and attentive style: "Every image in the book, including the most desolate, is rendered with precision and an aura of pure truth and tenderness.

He says "'A Passage North is more about witnessing violence from afar than it is about experiencing it up close," which is closer to his own experience of the Sri Lankan civil war.