Books

An examination of the challenges face by Sri Lanka's military forces during the first phase of the conflict with the LTTE.

Starting with the first deployment of the army in Jaffna in 1979, the book follows the army on to its first major military operation in May 1987.
The military's response demonstrated their inadequate training as well as their politcal masters' skewed perception of the conflict, frequently leading to disastrous outcomes. But it was also a period of learning. Despite many bloody setbacks and failures the armed forces gradually learned the rudiments of fighting a guerilla enemy, the culmination of this apprenticeship being the launching of 'Operation Liberation', the first brigade-strength operation carried out by the Sri Lankan army.

Read an excerpt!

“In my childhood, I was known as the boy whose mother had run off with an Englishman”

So begins the story of Myshkin and his mother Gayatri, who is driven to rebel against tradition and follow her artist’s instinct for freedom.

Anuradha Roy’s deeply moving novel tells the story of men and women trapped in a dangerous era uncannily similar to the present. Its scale is matched by its power as a parable of our times.

'This is why you read fiction at all' – Marie Arana, Washington Post

'Roy’s prose does not hit a single wrong note: its restrained beauty sings off the page' – Neel Mukherjee, Time Magazine

Sparks fly and things get a little crabby as Tao and Leah continue their adventures and make new friends.

Hoomans make some unwelcome appearances and leave things feeling very different. Luna the moth meets the fireflies and Mini the little hermit crab meets a sad jelly fish. And Tao and Leah understand that their lives are about to change.

This monograph encapsulates several decades of the artist's exhibitions on inclusivity, transformation and coexistence with man and the planet through 200 illustrations presented chronologically, describing the stylistic shifts and thematic preoccupations.

In her memoir, Another Time, Another Place, Anthea Senaratne with various anecdotes and stories of her childhood paints a picture of growing up in the newly independent Ceylon. The book details her very early life in Colombo, and outstation towns like Trincomalee and Kurunegala where her father was posted to as a Government Servant. The loss of her elder brother when she was very young, created a void in Anthea's life and she never quite came to terms with his untimely death. In this engaging memoir, Anthea tells the story of one Burgher family in the country that became Sri Lanka and through it, weaves together the story  of the Burgher community, their lives, food, celebrations and struggles.

The exciting sequel to Mythil's Secret

Mythil must put aside his problems with a school bully when his secret friend Asiri suddenly regains a part of his memory. But is Asiri's fantastic story from wartime Ceylon a figment of Mythil's imagination or did it really happen? Can Mythil use what he has learned on Asiri's Quest to overcome his problems at school? Join Mythil and Asiri on another spine-chilling, time-travelling adventure to find out!

Mythil's Secret is that rare thing in children's fiction - a work that discusses both adult and children's issues equally well... Yet, what takes Mythil's Secret beyond much children's literature, and where it really succeeds, is in its willingness to address the strengths, weaknesses and responsibilities of grown-ups, too, especially in relation to kids.
CHA, an Asian Literary Journal

Approved by the Ministry of Education

Assembling Ethnicities in Neoliberal Times interprets contemporary fictions to unpack neoliberalism's entanglements with nationalism and racism during Sri Lanka's war. Perera-Rajasingham does so by theorizing ethnographic fictions, a form that has both internalized certain colonial Orientalist impulses and critically engages with categories of objective gazing, empiricism, and temporal distancing. The book explores colonial-era travel writing by Robert Knox (1681) and Leonard Woolf (1913); contemporary works by Michael Ondaatje, Romesh Gunesekera, Shobasakthi, Dharmasiri Bandaranayake, and Thamotharampillai Shanaathanan; and cultural festivals and theater, including vernacular performances of Euripides's The Trojan Women and women workers' theater.

Assembling Ethnicities in Neoliberal Times brilliantly analyzes various ethnographic fictions and state-produced narratives to show how the Sri Lankan state and the LTTE, through neoliberal policies and internationally funded and oriented structures, created and maintained ethnic divisions between Sinhalese and Tamil people to justify war. The book could be useful to scholars studying such varying topics as South Asian politics, postcolonial capitalism, South Asian literature, and ethnographic methodology.  ~ Si Sindu, author of Blue Skinned Gods

Arguing for analyses beyond singular paradigms such as majoritarianism, ethno-nationalism and ethno-racism, Nimanthi Perera-Rajasingham views Sri Lanka's ethnic and religious identities—especially how they undergird war and virulent nationalisms—through the lenses of assemblage and neoliberalism. Perera-Rajasingham deftly draws upon a range of archives, literatures, films, documentaries, and visual and theoretical material to construct a theoretical apparatus and methodology that are nuanced, sophisticated and informed by a strong grasp of existing scholarship. ~ Manav Ratti, author of The Postsecular Imagination: Postcolonialism, Religion, and Literature

Perera-Rajasingham's book is poised to make a contribution to a growing subfield of studies on neoliberalism. It will also expand the field of postcolonial studies, specifically Sri Lankan Studies, by including analyses of non-Anglophone literature and juxtaposing literary and performative works with festivals, monuments, and art. ~ Maryse Jayasuriya, author of Terror and Reconciliation: Sri Lankan Anglophone Literature, 1983-2009

School projects have never been so much fun...

Five-year-old Ayash has a problem: how do you grow a family tree? Help arrives in the form of his grandmother, Paatti who, armed with a box of old photographs, gently guides the eager little boy while teaching him about his roots.

A humorous and endearing tale that will become a firm family favourite!

Lanka, Ceylon, Sarandib: merely three disparate names for a single island? Perhaps. Yet the three diverge in the historical echoes, literary cultures, maps and memories they evoke. Names that have intersected and overlapped – in a treatise, a poem, a document – only to go their own ways. But despite different trajectories, all three are tied to narratives of banishment and exile. Ronit Ricci suggests that the island served as a concrete exilic site as well as a metaphor for imagining exile across religions, languages, space and time: Sarandib, where Adam was banished from Paradise; Lanka, where Sita languished in captivity; and Ceylon, faraway island of exile for Indonesian royalty under colonialism. Utilizing Malay manuscripts and documents from Sri Lanka, Javanese chronicles, and Dutch and British sources, Ricci explores histories and imaginings of displacement related to the island through a study of the Sri Lankan Malays and their connections to an exilic past.

"Challenging the boundaries that too often divide area studies, Ronit Ricci's linguistic skills and path-breaking research historicize the Malay presence in contemporary Sri Lanka. Banishment and Belonging is a true tour de force" ~ Barbara Watson Andaya, University of Hawai'i

"Ronit Ricci has had to work, in her own words, with 'fragments', 'echoes', and 'imagination' to compose this fascinating history of longing and belonging in colonial Asia. It is a story based in formidable scholarship, yet told with grace and empathy." ~ Jonathan Spencer, University of Edinburgh

De Ceylan, la fascinante, au Sri Lanka de nos jours, sur fond de guerre civile entre Cinghalais et Tamouls, Beach Boy. Illusion tropicale raconte le parcours de Nissanka, un jeune bouddhiste, pauvre mais très rusé, dont le seul capital est sa grande beauté. Prêt à tout pour assurer la survie des siens, il remet ses rêves de bonne fortune entre les mains des étrangers de passage. Eléonore, par amour, tentera de changer le cours de sa destinée. Empoisonnée peu à peu par l'argent, leur histoire improbable tente de résister aux mensonges du jeune homme, alors que ressurgissent tragiquement dans sa vie les fantômes du passé quand Nissanka retrouve son ami d'enfance, devenu l'un des chefs des Tigres tamouls.

L'auteur nous entraîne à la découverte d'un pays à la richesse culturelle foisonnante, d'un peuple attachant et déchiré : un coin de Paradis avant le Tsunami.merveilleux pays à la beauté envoûtante.

Marie-Noëlle Seignolles est la fille de l'écrivain fantastique Claude Seignolle. Adolescente, elle fréquente le dernier salon littéraire de Lise Deharme et côtoie des auteurs aussi divers que Marcel Jouhandeau, Lawrence Durrell, Jacques Bergier, Marcel Allain (le père de Fantômas), entre autres... Curieuse du monde, particulièrement de l'Asie, elle tombe sous le charme de Ceylan. Pendant sept ans, elle y séjourne régulièrement, en temps de guerre comme de paix, recueillant témoignages, informations et documents sur ce pays à la beauté envoûtante Elle fait du Sri Lanka la toile de fond de son premier roman.

A Study of the Caste System in Northern Sri Lanka

Caste, while being one of the dominant socio-economic institutions in the Indian and Sri Lankan societies is also one of the most complicated because of its multiple ramifications. Numerous scholars and researchers have made in-depth studies of the subject and their conclusions in turn have evoked further interest and queries on the subject.

The present study offers a substantial detour into the operational aspects of the system. The main focus of the study lies in the historical reconstruction from the pre-colonial period. An innovative turn of the study is its efforts to cull evidence and information from the literary productions authored by the very victims who suffered under the system. Anti-caste movements and their socio-political transformations form one section. Speaking to and listening from the victims and the perpetrators is the most revealing part of this study, which is a contemporaneous and existent situation. This process has also revealed the different modes of caste operation in the three different regions in Northern Sri Lanka which were covered in the research. 

Nalini Ellawala's memoirs span two centuries and five generations. She writes of the transformations she has witnessed during the course of her life, in our society and in Sri Lanka's physical environment. She also reflects on the remarkable inner journey that she has undergone, because of social activism and her sensitivity to nature

The City of Colombo is characterized by a neglected, deteriorating but potentially magnificent resource - one of the best examples of Built Heritage in South Asia. This heritage has been developed for well over five centuries as a Military Fort, the Administrative Capital, and in more recent times the Financial City of Sri Lanka. With the new proposals for the development of Colombo Port City as the Financial District and the Administrative functions having been already moved to Sri Jayawardenapura, Kotte, there is every possibility of Colombo Fort being neglected and provide a 'free for all' ad hoc development policy for this once important site, unless adequate safeguards are taken immediately to preserve this unique heritage for the future.

With a continuous history of over a thousand years of development around a natural harbour as a nucleus, Colombo boasts of a built heritage shared with three maritime powers in the Portuguese, the Dutch and the British. This book provides a record of the history of the development of the history of Colombo Fort under various influences and the living examples of Built Heritage.

This book is a compilation of essays on several themes intended to provoke thought on and promote understanding about everyday political and social life on an island facing constant geopolitical and domestic political challenges. The themes of this book are: 4/21 Terror Attack and National Security; China, Belt and Road Initiative and Sri Lankan Foreign Policy; Geopolitics; Sustaining Democracy and Facing a Pandemic; and Domestic Political Stability, Leadership, and Economic Crime. 

Most essays have captured the domestic viewpoint from which to begin drawing a wider picture of the global geopolitical tapestry. The chapters enframe a variety of domestic political incidents, conflicts of various actors, and the conundrum of an island in the Indian Ocean, stuck in the triangular maritime power dynamics among the United States, China and India. They also examine the influences from foreign netions towards Sri Lanka's foreign policy and the dynamics of security challenges in the larger geosphere and marine sphere of South Asia and the Indian Ocean respectively. The chapters offer the reader an Olympian viewpoint of the challenges Sri Lanka faces, attempting to find connections and patterns towards greater external geopolitical influence and how it impacts domestic politics.

Winner of the Gratiaen Prize 2020

When a poor young boy succumbs to his injuries in the ICU, no one considers it anything but the result of a tragic accident. No one, that is, but Lotus, an introverted daydreamer who is drifting into a career in medicine more by parental choice than her own.

As a chance witness to his final moments, she is unwittingly drawn into his case and soon finds herself both angry and upset trying to understand what really happened to him.

Why, for instance, did the boy dash recklessly across the road into the path of a passing vehicle? Why did he have a contact with the same name as hers on his phone? What was his link to the luxurious Lotus Hospital?

Her sense of justice aroused, she follows a trail that takes her through the hospitals, slums and mansions of Colombo, juggling all this within her gritty life as a medical student. 

"Carmel Miranda's first novel creates a unique narrative that combines a sensitive and nuanced understanding of the Lankan medical world with a powerful and moving, yet unsentimental, psychological account of love, loss and reconciliation." ~ Arjuna Parakrama, Senior Professor of English, University of Peradeniya

Cet ouvrage est né de la rencontre de deux femmes : une sage-femme birmane traditionnelle âgée, et une Française alors jeune, désireuse de découvrir la façon dont la première exerçait son métier. Au fil des mois, une relation profonde se noue, non dénuée de tensions et de contradictions. Il en a résulté ces récits d'instants de leur amitié, puis instants de vie que la vieille dame considérait comme les plus importants pour elle.