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Title
& Author |
Description
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Funny
Boy
by Shyam Selvadurai |
Semi
autobiographical novel- follows the life of a family
through the writer's eyes as he struggles to come to
terms with his homosexuality and with the racism of
the society in which he lives- repeating with quiet
conviction that the human condition can, in spite of
everything, be joyful. |
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Monkfish
Moon
by Romesh Gunasekera |
A collection
of short stories - behind the tropic lushness of spice
gardens, flame trees and frangipani, violence and viciousness
hides. |
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Reef
by Romesh Gunasekera |
Short
listed for the Booker prize in 1994, Reef is a love story
set in a spoiled paradise, naive and knowing, fearful
and brave, the voice of a boy becoming a man in a world
stumbling to the brink of chaos. |
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The Village
in the Jungle
by Leonard Woolf |
Although
perhaps better known for being the husband of Virgina
Woolf, Leonard spent 7 years in the Ceylon Civil Service.
This novel reflects his fascination with the people who
lived in the jungle villages of Ceylon. It is also, writes
Woolf, "in some curious way the symbol of the anti
imperialism which has been growing upon me more and more
in my last few years in Ceylon." This book is probably
the best novel on Sinhalese life ever written in the English
language. |
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The Fountains
of Paradise
by Arthur C.Clarke |
A must
for any sci fi addict, based on a country which strongly
resembles Sri Lanka- here at the foot of the Rock, he
had conceived and created paradise; it only remained,
upon its summit, to build heaven. "An extraordinary
dynamo of ideas that transcend Science Fiction". |
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Elephant
Walk
by Robert Standish |
The epitaph
to a more spacious and colourful epoch whose tail end
the author was privileged to see. Relive the relaxed lifestyles
of the planters; romance, intrigue and frivolity mixed
with blood, sweat and tears. |
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The Jam
Fruit Tree
by Carl Muller |
Winner
of the 1993 Gratiaen Memorial Prize for best work in English
Literature.
1st part of the Burgher Trilogy. |
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Yakada
Yaka
by Carl Muller |
2nd part
of the Burgher Trilogy. |
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Spit
and Polish
by Carl Muller |
Final
book on the Burgher Trilogy. Live the life of a Burgher
family through following the hilarious, affectionate,
candid and moving lives of the Von Bloss family....the
Burghers believed in living life to the hilt. Every situation
occasions wild revels; there is nothing that cannot be
solved through a brawl. |
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Running
in the Family
by Michael Ondaatje |
Sri Lanka's
greatest living author: semi autobiographical account
of the author's search for his "roots". |
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Desire
and Other Stories
by Anne Ranasinghe |
A Jewish
refugee from Hitler’s Germany, she married a Sri
Lankan, and brings broader perspectives to bear on the
conflicts of her adopted land. |
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The Pleasures
of conquest
by Yasmine Gooneratne |
A novel
of the post-colonial nineties - Gooneratne's urbane wit
produces an ambitious design which subsumes myth, culture,
politics, social commentary and satire, and stretches
into two continents and centuries. |
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Once
Upon a Tender Time
by Carl Muller |
Continuing
the tales of the endearing Bloss family. |
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Cinnamon
Gardens
by Shyam Selvadurai |
A compulsively
readable novel set in the 1920's about prejudice and love. |
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The Sandglass
by Romesh Gunasekera |
Among
the secrets that Prins Ducal’s mother has taken
with her to the grave is the mystery of his father’s
accidental death 40 years earlier. With the help of his
friend Chip, his mother’ ex lover and confidante,
Prins sets out to uncover the truth. |
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Heavens
Edge
by Romesh Gunasekera |
The book’s
protagonist, Marc, is a man in search of a father or perhaps
in search of himself. On traveling to Sri Lanka, Marc
slowly realizes that a world you care so much for, which
you believe in, has to be protected. |
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The English
Patient
by Michael Ondaatje |
This
novel won Ondaatje the Booker Prize and whilst the subject
has nothing to do with Sri Lanka, it made people around
the world aware of Sri Lanka’s contribution to English
Literature, and as a result Ondaatje set up the Gratien
Memorial Prize which is presented annually to the best
Sri Lankan writing in the English language. |
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Anils
Ghost
by Michael Ondaatje |
Set in
Sri Lanka’s gruesome war of the 1980’s, this
novel explores that territory where the personal and political
intersect in the fulcrum of war, it illuminates the human
condition through pity and terror…every side was
killing and hiding the evidence, this is an unofficial
war, no one wants to alienate the foreign powers. |
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Colombo
by Carl Muller |
A book
which loosely traces the history of Colombo, but also
makes us very aware of the battle being fought today by
major vested interests and those struggling to survive. |
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The Hamilton
Case
by Michelle De Kretser |
Reminiscent
of The remains of the day, De Kretser has given us a classic
whodunit wrapped up in a beautiful and tragic literary
novel.
“Winner of the Encore award”. |
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At the
Waters Edge
by Pradeep Jeganathan |
Seven
interlinked short stories that might make you want to
go down to the water’s edge. A moving snapshot of
the contemporary Sri Lankan condition. |
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Murder
in the Pettah
by Jeanne Cambrai |
A whodunit
but which also provides a fascinating glimpse of life
in Sri Lanka today. |
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Grass
for my feet
by Jinadasa Vijaya-Tunga |
The first
work by a Sri Lankan that brought the country before an
international readership. |
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July
by Karen Roberts |
An extremely
moving novel about two young lovers - one Tamil, one Sinhalese
- caught up in the riots in Sri Lanka in June 1983. A
Sri Lankan Romeo and Juliet. |
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All is
Burning
by Jean Arasanayagam |
Sri Lanka’s
principal poet in English, her Burgher background was
superseded by marriage to a Tamil that led her to suffer
as a refugee during the ethnic problems that overtook
the country in 80’s. |
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In the
Garden Secretly
by Jean Arasanayagam |
Seven
brilliant stories about war and rebellion, displacement
and dispossession and about what it means to be a Sri
Lankan today. |
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Trussed
by Shiromi Pinto |
A patchwork
of Black and Asian urban life. Trussed is a compelling
tragic comedy described by the Times as "fast, blackly
and funny and so cool that it hurts. Trussed makes use
of the author's Sri Lankan descent to inform her portrayal
of multiculturalism in London". |
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When
memory Dies
by A Sivanandan |
A powerful
three generation saga of a Sri Lankan family's search
for coherence and continuity in a country broken by colonial
occupation and driven by ethnic wars. |
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