Category Archives: historical novel

February 6, 2024 · 1:23 am

Ganeshananthan’s & Karunatitilaka’s Novels Reviewed by Anjum Hasan

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.

 

 

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September 24, 2023 · 9:53 pm

Rave Reviews of LAKE BEAUTY from Adelaidians

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.”

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September 22, 2023 · 5:49 pm

Scrutinizing Sri Lanka’s Past in ATITA

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.”

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August 29, 2023 · 1:32 am

Charles Dickens and Ceylon

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.

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August 13, 2023 · 6:39 pm

A Maiden’s Prayer …. Set in Sri Lanka

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. 

 

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July 10, 2023 · 6:29 pm

Intertwining Pathways in Past Lanka Time …. A Tale. A Tale

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.

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