The 2011 Galle Literary Festival

It is already 5 years since the Galle Literary Festival began and continues every year to enchant book lovers and those who value the magical beauty and power of words.

This year however and for the first time, a festival curator has been appointed. Shyam Selvadurai, author of Funny Boy, Cinnamon Gardens and Swimming in the Monsoon Sea has been working on the festival programme since April 2010. As the curator, he has made some notable changes to the usual programme schedule we have seen in the past years. Selavduarai plans to introduce late night revues and readings as well as free lunch time concerts picnics which will include ( only to name a few), presentation and performances on Kandyan dancing and even wine tasting sessions with Jancis Robinson, England’s leading authority on wine!

The festival curator plans to allocate time to discuss under the guidance and expertise of Ranjini Obeyesekere , the issues and the importance of translation in a post war era of a tri-lingual country.

Full report here Sunday Leader

Unfinished love story

Sri Lankan novelist Nihal de Silva died before he could finish his last novel, Arathi.


Sri Lankan novelist and avid naturalist Nihal de Silva was killed tragically in a landmine explosion in 2006 in Wilpattu National Park. His first novel The Road from Elephant Pass won the Gratiean Award instituted by Sri Lanka-born novelist Michael Ondaatje) in 2003.  De Silva also won the state literary award “for writing courageously about political parasites and their terminal torture of a nation and its helpless masses”.

The plot

His last book Arathi, launched at the London Book Fair in April, is dedicated “to the poor in Sri Lanka marginalised and suffering, on whose behalf so many have done…. so little...”

With a powerful and disconcerting first-person narrative, Arathi tells a gripping story of arms dealers, betrayals, murder and terrorism. Jehan Yatawara, a young executive in an advertising agency Target, acquires a second-hand IBM ThinkPad. Jehan runs into a mysterious programme “Thiara” and struggles to find a password to unravel it. When he finds it, Jehan is shocked by the entries made by the previous owner.

Full report here Hindu

The Living Icon Of Sinhala Literature

Endowed Sri Lankan writer K Jayathilaka is one of the pioneers of Sinhalese realistic novel. As a creative writer, he exhibited his talents since early 1960 s. his novels and short stories represent the ironical social perspectives and had a profound impact on Sinhalese literature. K Jayathilaka demonstrated talents that could be compared to that of the greatest literary genius Martin Wicramasinghe.

He wrote a wide range of literature from novels to short stories as well as children’s literature. K Jayathilaka has authored nearly 12 children’s books and he added some of his childhood experiences to these books. His autobiography that narrates his childhood – Punchi Palle Gasavena reminds us the first book of an autobiographical trilogy by Maxim Gorky – Deistva (childhood). In Punchi Palle Gasavena autobiography Jayathilaka expresses some of the social injustices that he experienced as a child.

Full report here Sri Lanka Gaurdian

Rebuilding of Sri Lanka

Rajapaksa appears more focussed on economic development, including that of the Tamil-dominated North

FROM WINNING THE WAR
TO WINNING PEACE:
Post-War Rebuilding
of the Society in Sri Lanka:
Edited by V.R. Raghvan;
Centre for Security Analysis

Since the end of the military operations against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam more than a year ago, the Sri Lanka watchers have been preoccupied with the question of how the government plans to go about the task of reconciliation between the majority and minority communities. Constitutional changes have apparently been rendered easier by the massive victory the coalition headed by President Mahinda Rajapaksa scored in the parliamentary elections earlier this year, winning nearly two-thirds of the seats.

While there are some signs that the government may be considering constitutional reform, President Rajapaksa appears more focussed, at the moment, on economic development, including that of the Tamil-dominated North and East regions, prompting the view that he is chasing Sri Lanka's long-cherished “Singapore-model” dream — one in which the country's development and prosperity, rather than sweeping constitutional reform, will be the key to co-existence and reconciliation between ethnic communities.

Full review here Hindu

Melancholy and menace

THE sense of place is a constant in Roma Tearne’s work. Not surprising, considering she fled her troubled homeland of Sri Lanka at the age of 10 and has never been back. The daughter of a controversial mixed-race marriage, she became a streetwise kid on the streets of Brixton and now lives among the dreaming spires of Oxford. In between, she enjoyed a couple of happy years in East Anglia.

Her new novel, The Swimmer, is set on the Suffolk coast. It’s a story about love, loss and what home really means, and for the most part is told in three different first-person voices. Ria, a woman approaching her mid 40s, lost her father when she was a child and ever since has struggled to find love.

Then a young illegal immigrant from Sri Lanka called Ben arrives in Suffolk via Moscow. Pending a decision from the Home Office on his asylum application, he takes a daily swim in the river near Ria’s home. An unconventional but emotional romance follows – defying boundaries, cultures and, dare we say it, the xenophobic fictional residents of Orford. Tragedy isn’t far away, however.

Full report here Eadt

'Sri Lanka's writers must remember and speak out'

On the island of Sri Lanka, an important anniversary will soon be celebrated. 18 May is the day last year on which the war ended in a government "victory" over the Tamil forces of the LTTE. In a token gesture, to coincide with World Press Freedom Day, President Mahinda Rajapaksa has pardoned Tissainayagam, the journalist sentenced unlawfully to 20 years in jail. Although many other journalists languish in prison and 80,000 civilians in camps, the bloody years appear to be a memory – a memory discarded and ignored among the land mines, and the mass graves.

There is another anniversary that occurs this May. Unnoticed by the West, it marks a tragedy from almost 30 years ago: an event of such significance that even today, educated Sri Lankan Tamils cannot speak of it without a tremor. I am not talking about the violence perpetrated by government and terrorists alike. Nor am I talking about those genocidal crimes against tens of thousands of Tamils, the human rights abuses, or even the continued hounding of the press. I am talking of something simpler, older, more symbolic: the burning of the public library in Jaffna over a period of three days and nights in 1981.

Full report here Independent

Sri Lankan English: The state of the debate

In the two and a half years since I published my book, A Dictionary of Sri Lankan English, I have followed the ongoing debate on the subject with interest. The good news is that there is a debate, and it seems to have entered the public domain rather than being confined to academic circles. There seems to be increasing acceptance of the idea that such a thing as Sri Lankan English exists, that it deserves to be recognised as a valid variety of English, and that Sri Lankans can be proud to speak English “our way”.

This opinion is nothing new in the world of English language teaching. “World Englishes” is a well-established and growing field – the plural “Englishes” says it all. And here in Sri Lanka ELT academics such as Professors Thiru Kandiah, Siromi Fernando, Arjuna Parakrama and Manique Gunesekera have all contributed to promoting the idea that the Sri Lankan variety of English should be validated alongside other more established varieties. What is new is that it seems to be coming out into the open, a “hot topic” on which many people are ready to express an opinion.

Full report here groundviews.org

Lankan book stall at London Book Fair

Latest books from Sri Lanka will be on display at the London Book fair at Earl's Court from April 19, 2010 on a joint initiative of The Booksellers and Importers Association of Ceylon and the Sri Lanka Book Publishers' Association.

More than 200 books recently published in Sri Lanka will be available at the prestigious fair, which will be held from 19th to 21st April. Booksellers, Librarians and professionals from around the world visit this Fair, which is a very important literary event at which the latest books from around the world are on display and available for orders.

This is the first time that the two premier organisations associated with Sri Lanka's publishing and retail trade are working together to promote Sri Lankan books at the London Book Fair. In addition to books in English, some of the latest Sinhala and Tamil books will also be available at the Fair. A special 68 page publication, Books in print in Sri Lanka 2010, with colour images of the books, has been specially prepared for the event.

Full report here Daily Mirror

Lankan writer arrested for offending Buddhism

In a blatantly anti-democratic move, Sri Lanka police arrested writer Sarah Malini Perera, 38, on March 20 for allegedly offending Buddhism. Perera, who resides in Bahrain and was arrested while on holiday in Sri Lanka, has written two books in vernacular Sinhala detailing her conversion from Buddhism to Islam while working in the Middle East. Her lawyers filed a case on March 30 demanding her immediate release, but she remains in custody.

Lakshan Dias, Perera’s lawyer, told the World Socialist Web Site that the writer was taken into police custody by a special unit of Mirihana police station when she went to a cargo service to ask about shipping copies of her books—From Darkness to Light and Questions and Answers—overseas. “I have gone through those two books but there are no harmful things for Buddhism,” the lawyer said.

According to Dias, Perera is being held under Sri Lanka’s draconian emergency laws, with a detention order issued by the defence ministry. Police have not brought her before a court and no specific charges have been laid against her. The continuing state of emergency has been used to detain tens of thousands of young Tamils without trial since the defeat of the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) last May.

Full report here World Socialist Web Site

Competition to complete landmine victim's novel

Perhaps for the first time in the world, a Sri Lankan publisher is offering a reward to provide the ending to an unfinished novel. Author Nihal de Silva was working on his new novel Arathi when he was killed in a terrorist landmine explosion in Sri Lanka three years ago.

Publisher Vijitha Yapa has now published the unfinished novel and is offering a reward of £500 in a competition being held where anyone who provides a satisfactory ending will be rewarded. The unfinished book has been published and will be launched at the London Book Fair at the Sri Lanka Books Stall on Monday, April 19.

The novel is woven around a gamut of tenders, the underworld, arms dealing, betrayals and murder. It was left unfinished just as another unfinished murder mystery of the past, The Mystery of Edwin Drood by Charles Dickens. Supplying a conclusion to the famous predecessor has occupied writers from the time of Dickens's death to the present day.

Full report here DNA

Author arrested for "offensive" books against Buddhism

Human rights activists have urged Sri Lankan authorities to free Sarah Malanie Perera who was arrested under the country’s stringent emergency laws last week for writing two books allegedly offensive to Buddhism.

Perera, a Sinhalese who converted from Buddhism to Islam more than 10 years ago, is a resident of Bahrain. She was on her way back to Bahrain from Colombo last week after spending three months here when she was arrested.

She compiled the two books written in Sinhalese while in Colombo and had got it printed here. According to reports, Perera was sending some copies through freight when she was apprehended. The arrest of the 38-year-old author came in the same week the Sri Lankan government said it will not allow rapper and R&B singer Akon to perform in Colombo because one of his music videos was found to have demeaned Buddhism.

Police here have remained tight-lipped about Perera’s arrest.  Police spokesperson, SSP P Jayakody, told HT that he was waiting to get more details from the concerned police officers. "I have asked for a report,’’ he said. The Bahrain-based Gulf Daily News reported that the Bahrain Human Rights Society (BHRS) secretary-general Dr Abdulla Al Deerazi has said that it would do everything it could to bring her back.

Full report here Hindustan Times 

REVIEW: A Disobedient Girl

REVIEW

A Disobedient Girl

Ru Freeman
Viking
Rs 499
PP 384
ISBN: 9780670917952

Blurb
She loved fine things and she had no doubt that she deserved them.Since her days in the orphanage, Latha has been a companion and servant to Thara, a more fortunate girl her own age. But since her trip to the hill-country when she caught her first glimpse of a rose, Latha has known she was destined for a better life. For now, she must watch silently as Thara receives all the luxuries Latha is denied, consoled only by the rose-scented soap stolen from the bathroom of her master's house.Years and miles away, Biso, a desperate young mother, flees from her murderous husband, taking her children with her to the remote hills. As Biso and Latha journey towards their separate fates, struggling to hold on to their 

independence, each will betray the people they love, changing the course of their lives for ever. A Disobedient Girl is an epic, heartbreaking novel about the linked destinies of two women, set against the backdrop of beautiful, politically turbulent Sri Lanka.

Reviews

Not just a woman Mint

Of the many profound truths that pepper A Disobedient Girl, perhaps the most contextually illuminating is attributed to a minor character somewhere in the middle of the book. “People leave home for many reasons, Duwa (daughter),” an old lady says. “They leave because they love the wrong people, or they leave because the right people don’t love them.

Love in its many forms and interpretations—benevolent and malignant, sororal and maternal, instinctive and presumed—is the motif of Sri Lankan-origin writer Ru Freeman’s first book, without doubt one of the most compelling novels you’ll read this year. A Disobedient Girl is such an accomplished work that it is hard to believe it’s a first novel: At the same time, its wisdom and temperance say much for a delayed debut. 

Desilit

“She loved fine things and she had no doubt she deserved them." 

This is the opening sentence of the novel, and one which made me smile. A good, provocative opening sentence to reel the reader right in. This sentence alone encapsulates the protagonist’s personality and priorities, which is to shape her motivations, actions, and subsequent situations. Given a society like the Sri Lankan one with its rigid and hierarchical class structures and gender dos-and-don’ts, combined with the telling title, it was clear from the outset that our protagonist was going to break some rules, get into some trouble, and defy some societal norms.

The structure of the novel becomes apparent very quickly – 2 lines of narrative, each centred on one central female character, with the alternating chapters each headed by the name of the character (Latha and Biso) whose storyline the chapter unfolds. From the outset, the structure of the novel is slightly confusing in terms of its time frame, which is left unclear as to whether these 2 narratives are running in temporal parallel or not, while they are running in a literary parallel. The reader is also left wondering if the two narratives have a common starting point in time. At the end of the novel, it becomes clear the author needed to leave the time frames unspecified as part of her literary device in order to save an impact for the ending, but it is rather problematic for a reader who is left wondering throughout the first 350 pages or so about where to place and understand each of the 2 threads of narrative: in the present, past, recent past, far past…? 

Mostlyfiction

Ru Freeman’s remarkable debut novel, set in Sri Lanka and told in the context of civil unrest, unfolds like a hard candy being unwrapped in the theater, twist by crinkling twist, until finally, after suspenseful moments, the sweet interior is finally free. Here, the two ends of the wrapping seem unrelated: the story of Latha, a headstrong servant girl raised with a more privileged “sister,” Thara; and that of Biso, a woman fleeing her abusive husband with her three children in tow. The women are products of a culture that gives both class and men the power to decide their destinies, and yet they rebel against it, often under the cover of deceit, with the hope that their secret choices will finally make them happy. Told in alternating chapters — one from the point-of-view of Latha and the other in the first-person narration of Biso – A Disobedient Girl unfolds piece-by-piece, guided by the thematic forces of karma and destiny, despite the best efforts of its characters.

A defiant lesson Deccan Herald

Freeman’s debut though not outrightly brandishing a brand of feminism is innately resplendent with a truly free feminine voice that provides insights into the lives of two women — two mothers in Sri Lanka. The style of writing is both intuitive and feminine, intensifying the predicament that both Latha and Biso, who embody motherhood, find themselves in. A sense of longing, optimism and adventure are all implied efficiently by the said use of intuition as the author crafts a world where these two women subvert the norms by embracing customised solutions. Not to mention, their giant leaps of faith dramatised solely by the use of this power of intuition.

The inflections of deliberations that the protagonists engage in are inherently feminine in their emotional quotient and are played up optimally by the use of a feminine style of writing. Use of words like ‘kindness’, ‘respect’ and ‘understand’ reverberate with a definite female timbre. The angst of a mother-to-be, the protectiveness of a mother, the possessiveness of a young mother who has lost her children to social norms are all contained effortlessly by nuances of language.