We’ve been devouring books about Sri Lanka ever since our arrival. There’s a great deal of contemporary fiction, and also some classics. Here are seven our favourites (so far).
The Teardrop Island: Following Victorian Footsteps Across Sri Lanka
Cherry Briggs’ travelogue takes place shortly after the end of the civil war. The ‘Victorian Footsteps’ are those of James Tennant, Northern Irish MP and Acting Governor of Ceylon. Briggs quotes a number of entertaining passages from his works, and goes to the same places he did. But the two parts do not hold together terribly well. Nonetheless, it was fun to read – indeed, that’s why it makes this list. (The majority of post-civil war books about Sri Lanka are anything but fun.) A great introduction to the island and its quirks, including tuk-tuk drivers, ola leaves (featuring age-old prophecies), expats, and post-tsunami rebuilding.
The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida
Shehan Karunatilaka’s 2022 Booker Prize winner is a kind of thriller/mystery, about the title character, who wakes up dead, his body dumped into Beira Lake (which we can see from our windows; see featured image). Maali has seven days – known as ‘moons’ in the afterlife – to solve his own murder, while at the same time having to decide whether he should go into The Light and be reborn. The novel takes place in the early days of the civil war, and offers a satirical take on the corruption of the various sides. (Hint: everyone’s corrupt!) We found this book both immensely entertaining, simultaneously funny and moving, and we highly recommend it!
The Jam Fruit Tree
This is the first book in Carl Muller’s trilogy about Burgher life during the first half of the twentieth century, from the thirties to Sri Lankan independence in the 1970s. Its sweeping narrative covers the life and loves of the Van Bloss family. We especially liked its rendering of the Burgher patois, and its capturing of their raucous life in Colombo.
When Memory Dies
This is an extremely moving book. The author, Ambalavaner Sivanandan, who died in 2018, charts the fates of three generations of a Sri Lankan family, the first during the labour strikes of 1920, the second at the time of independence in 1948, and the third as civil war was breaking out in the 1980s. The author beautifully portrays both major and minor characters, and he is particularly adept at framing the same struggles through different lenses. The challenges for each generation are painfully reminiscent of previous ones. Though there are a number of scenes of brutality in the book (especially around the conflicts between the Sinhalese and the Tamils), it is nonetheless a very humane book, one that continually stresses the need to remember – and to remember what really happened, not some sanitised version of the past.
The Professional
Ashok Ferrey has written a number of books about contemporary Sri Lankans and the diaspora. This one is our favourite because its main character is an Oxford mathematics graduate. Despite his father’s belief that his degree will open every door, Chamath can’t get a work permit, so he turns to prostitution in London to make a living. Unfortunately, he breaks the only rule of his ‘profession’ – don’t get involved – and loses everything. But there is, at the end, redemption. The book partly takes place in Colombo, and provides the story of a ‘returnee’ to the motherland.
Trouble in Nuala
Harriet Steel’s cosy mystery series opener takes place in the fictional hill town of Nuala. (See our post on Kandy for more about the hill towns of Sri Lanka.) Inspector de Silva and his English wife are delightful, as is the depiction of colonial life in the 1930s. The mystery is a little meh, but you can’t have everything in life.
Ramayana
As you may or may not remember from your most recent reading of this Indian epic, its opening premise is that the demon king Ravana kidnaps Rama’s beloved Sita. And guess where he takes her? To the Ashok Grove in Sri Lanka. The Ashok Grove is usually identified as Nuwara Eliya, a beautiful hill town in the centre of the island. The Ramayana is by far the oldest of the books about Sri Lanka. And, truth to tell, it’s not exactly about Sri Lanka. But we thought we ought to include it anyway!
Running in the Family
We first discovered Michael Ondaatje through his novel The English Patient, a book that has a particular interest for one of us since the patient of the title arrives in a hospital burnt beyond recognition with only a copy of Herodotus that he has annotated. Ondaatje, born in Sri Lanka, now lives in Toronto, and is a poet and novelist of the first rank. This memoir of several generations of his Burgher family includes his own youth in Sri Lanka, and captures a great deal of the strangeness and mystery, but also the beauty of life in this country. It is a very Herodotean account – in some cases you don’t know if he’s telling the truth or he has invented a tall tale. Perhaps we can give it no higher recommendation than to say that it was this book above all that persuaded us to visit Sri Lanka.
There are some of the books about Sri Lanka we’ve been enjoying most. Let us know if you read any of them, and what you think!
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