Offerings to the Blue God by Shirani Rajapakse
Synopsis: A child saved from the tsunami finds herself trapped as a domestic slave, a young woman finds out the true face of her lover when she builds up the courage to visit his home, an ex-terrorist attempts to forget her past and start a new life, a bored journalist tries to find an easy way to migrate, a young woman reaches out to God to find a solution to her bad luck only to change her mind when confronted with a troubling thought.
Q and A with William Dalrymple, Historian …. in Q and A in The Weekend Australian Magazine, 21/22 September 2024
William Dalrymple was born in Scotland in 1965, and brought up on the shores of the Firth of Forth. He was educated at Ampleforth and Trinity College, Cambridge where he was first History Exhibitioner then Senior History Scholar.
He is the author of nine books about India and the Islamic world, including City of Djinns , White Mughals, The Last Mughal and Nine Lives: In Search of the Sacred in Modern India.
Filed under Afghanistan, art & allure bewitching, authoritarian regimes, British imperialism, communal relations, cultural transmission, economic processes, Empire loyalism, ethnicity, heritage, historical interpretation, historical novel, Indian religions, Indian traditions, landscape wondrous, life stories, literary achievements, modernity & modernization, pilgrimages, politIcal discourse, power politics, religiosity, travelogue, unusual people, world events & processes
Observer in a Black Sea Port, …. with highlighting mpasis imposed by Thuppahi
Broadly speaking, today, there are three types of Russians as follows,
1) Pro-Western Russians. This group love the West, want Russia to be fully integrated in the West, and believe that can only happen if Putin is killed or removed. They use words like “fascist”, “tyrant”, “bloodthirsty”, “war criminal”, and “genocidal maniac” to describe Putin. All of this is dangerous hyperbole because they don’t appreciate that if Putin were removed, a hardcore nationalist would likely replace him — which will be far worse than Mr. Putin. Continue reading
Filed under accountability, authoritarian regimes, centre-periphery relations, fundamentalism, governance, historical novel, landscape wondrous, life stories, meditations, patriotism, performance, politIcal discourse, power politics, Presidential elections, security, truth as casualty of war, Ukraine & Its Ramifications, world affairs
Anjum Hasan: “Even As A Ghost” in The New York Review of Books, 18 January 2024 … reaching me via a tennis-mate Ralph Schlomowitz who is a ‘religious’ adherent of the NYRB and matters highbrow;while Amaasiiri De Silva in New York sent me the whole text in Worsd File –thereby ‘undermining’ the NYR’s effing barriers.
Hasan reviews two new books relating to Sri Lanka in this essay: Brotherless Night by V.V. Ganeshananthan, Random House, 348 pp., $28.00; $18.00 (paper) …. & The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka, Norton, 388 pp., $18.95 (paper)
In their new novels, V. V. Ganeshananthan and Shehan Karunatilaka use the “distance of time” to dramatize large chunks, if not the whole, of Sri Lanka’s recent past.
Filed under anti-racism, art & allure bewitching, authoritarian regimes, centre-periphery relations, citizen journalism, cultural transmission, education, ethnicity, governance, heritage, historical interpretation, historical novel, Indian Ocean politics, insurrections, language policies, life stories, LTTE, nationalism, politIcal discourse, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, sri lankan society, Tamil civilians, Tamil migration, tamil refugees, Tamil Tiger fighters, terrorism, the imaginary and the real, travelogue, truth as casualty of war, unusual people, vengeance, war crimes
LAKE BEAUTY – A murder dissolves.
Here’s what readers have to say:
Justin La Brooy: “Lake Beauty is a novel based in rural Australia covering much of the first half of the last century. It gives an exquisite glimpse into a time and place that has changed out of recognition, though one is left with a sense that the mind-sets and patterns of behaviour may be still with us…. The story grabs the attention of the reader from the beginning and maintains its interest as the plot develops…………………. A great read.”
A New Investigative Website …. https://atita.org/
About Atita: Atita is dedicated to the investigation of historical events in Sri Lanka. Taking its name from the Pali word for “past” (atīta), Atita serves to fill in gaps in English-language literature of Sri Lankan history.
All are welcome to read our work, but those already familiar with Sri Lankan history since 1948 will find it the most enriching. Our primary focus is on events from 1948 to 1972, when Sri Lanka was still called “Ceylon.”
Filed under Aboriginality, accountability, ancient civilisations, art & allure bewitching, Buddhism, centre-periphery relations, economic processes, ethnicity, heritage, historical interpretation, historical novel, Indian religions, Indian traditions, landscape wondrous, life stories, literary achievements, paintings, patriotism, politIcal discourse, religiosity, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, tolerance, transport and communications, travelogue, truth as casualty of war, unusual people, world events & processes
Raja Bandaranayake, in THE CEYLANKAN vol 26/3, August 2023, where the title runs “Charles Dickens on Ceylon”
Introduction: An anthology by Charles Dickens entitled Sunshine on Daily Paths (or the Revelation of Beauty and Wonder in Common Things,1 picked up in an antiquarian bookshop in the UK, included six of its forty-five chapters on different aspects of life in Ceylon, all written in the first person. I asked myself the question: Did Dickens really visit Ceylon? If he did, why is there no record of the visit of such a famous person in our 19th century history? Could he have visited Ceylon incognito? If he did not visit, how did he write so accurately, and in such detail, about the places visited?
I decided to investigate these questions.
A Notice sent by Charles Schokman of Melbourne
Srianthi Perera, a journalist and former reporter at The Arizona Republic in the USA, has authored a whimsical and endearing literary novel based on her native Sri Lanka.
Synopsis by the Publishers
In the month of 11 in the year 2048 of the Buddhist era, how many people knew that the South of Lanka would face a deadly cyclone which would change the entire history of the country. The lion race came to know of the year 1505 of the Christian era only then. The life of ten-year-old Hethu who lived on the coastline of the South changed in the same way as everybody else’s life. The life of 10-year-old Juan who worked on the Portuguese ship “Maria Helena” also changed on the same day. Their lives became intertwined with that of a monk named Rahula who lived in a Vihare in Kotte. Destiny brought them together in a strange way. It is through their meeting that the thoughts and knowledge of the realities of life changed each one of them. They see God and man in different ways. “Balakotu and Nauka ” is a new kind of novel.
Filed under ancient civilisations, art & allure bewitching, authoritarian regimes, cultural transmission, economic processes, education, ethnicity, heritage, historical interpretation, historical novel, island economy, landscape wondrous, life stories, literary achievements, pilgrimages, religiosity, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, the imaginary and the real
thuppahi
