Daily Archives: October 16, 2013

October 16, 2013 · 11:29 pm

A Visit to Mannar: Bi-lingual Speeches and the Desire for a Bi-lingual National Anthem

Jehan Perera,  The Island, 15 October 2013, where the title is “Desire to engage by those who cannot sing national anthem”

There is an invigoration of civil society in the North after the holding of the Northern Provincial Council elections.  For the first time ever since the end of the colonial period there is the sense of having a government that is their own.  There are doubts expressed by some sections in the rest of the country that this political empowerment could lead to the strengthening of separatist sentiment.  Sections within the government itself have expressed their concerns.  However, when I visited Mannar in the North last week, the impression I received was of a people who celebrate being part of the larger national polity. Continue reading →

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October 16, 2013 · 9:45 am

Christopher Ondaatje’s journeys with Woolf in contemporary Ceylon

Gamini Seneviratne reviewing Christopher Ondaatje: Woolf in Ceylon … taken  from The Island, 17 May 2006

Gamini Seneviratne

Gamini Seneviratne

This book runs to over 300 pages–room enough for Christopher Ondaatje to touch on virtually every aspect of Leonard Woolf’s life and work. It would of course be possible to pursue each of them towards a clearer understanding of both (author and subject). In a review of this kind, though, a consideration of what appears to be the author’s view of what Woolf experienced here and in England must suffice.

CHRIS ON 122 It is embellished by many photographs, most of them truly excellent. Some have been drawn from the archives of the Royal Geographical Society and the University of Sussex, many are of Ondaatje’s own making. The author has been to a great deal of trouble researching the people and places mentioned by Woolf in his writings on / from Ceylon: ‘The Village in the Jungle’, ‘Stories from the East’, his letters and ‘Growing’ the segment of his autobiography that covers his stay here, and his ‘Diaries’ as Assistant Government Agent, Hambantota. The writing is lively and lucid, perhaps less so here than in ‘The Man-eater of Punani’; a selection of the photographs in both books merit publication in a separate portfolio. Continue reading →

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October 16, 2013 · 9:26 am

Land Powers vested in the Provincial Councils: Dayan misses the boat

Gerald H. Peiris, in The Island, 16 October 2013, where the title is “

GERRY PEIRISThe reader of Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka’s ‘Disinformation, Devolution and the Presidency’ (Midweek Review of 2 October 2013) has ample reason to wonder whether the caption refers to the doctor’s own disinformation or to what he has attributed to others. I am not concerned with the mildly amusing autobiographic trivia with which Dr. DJ often finds it necessary to embellish what he has to say on genuinely important issues. My focus here is on his observations on the recent Supreme Court clarification of the limits of the powers over ‘Land’ vested on Provincial Councils through the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, and on the links he has tried to establish between the resurgence of the Tamil National Alliance (a potentially secessionist political force backed by India) and prevarication on the part of the government of Sri Lanka he perceives in implementing to the fullest the provisions for devolution of power to the Provincial Councils. Continue reading →

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October 16, 2013 · 8:27 am

Chandani Lokuge: how she works

Sachitra Mahendra, in the Daily News, 16 October 2013, where the title is “Not ‘poetry’ nonsense…”

CHANDANI 22Playing with words is not everyone’s premises. Only a few could make reading a hobby. Writing is confined to an even lesser crowd. When it comes to writing too, everybody cannot do it strikingly. Not every written piece would make waves. Well, everyone cannot be a wordsmith! There is a term for beautiful writing in French: belles lettre. That is why Professor Chandani Lokuge’s narrative style deserves a benevolent gaze. Three novels so far under her belt (and one short story collection), Lokuge does not trek the trendy path. One would easily feel spent to read a few pages of a novel by her. That’s no easy read, of course, it requires reading between lines — patience, in other words. But it is not short of breath, not short of life. That’s all in, brimming with breaths. Continue reading →

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