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The 15 best books about Sri Lanka
We conclude our series on the tiny tropical island by reading the best books about Sri Lanka and the insights offered within their pages Before visiting a country, I like to read a book or two about the destination to get a feel for the place and culture. For Sri Lanka I chose Brixton Beach by Roma Tearne. Tearne, a Sri Lankan-born writer living in the UK, provided the perfect introduction to our trip. As with Tearne's novel, much of modern Sri Lankan literature is linked to the country's 25-year civil war...
The 15 best books about Sri Lanka
We conclude our series on the tiny tropical island by reading the best books about Sri Lanka and the insights offered within their pages
Before I visit a country, I like to read a book or two about the destination to get a feel for the place and culture. For Sri Lanka I chose Brixton Beach by Roma Tearne. Tearne, a Sri Lankan-born writer living in the UK, provided the perfect introduction to our trip.
As with Tearne's novel, much of modern Sri Lankan literature is intertwined with the country's 25-year civil war, which is believed to have left between 70,000 and 80,000 people dead. The theme of war runs through many of the books listed. However, we have tried to include a range of books that reflect the country's many faces, including colonial memoirs, journalistic travelogues, homespun literary fiction and, of course, the 'serious cricket novel'.
We present our view of the best books on Sri Lanka, listed below in no particular order.
The best books about Sri Lanka
| 1. | Running in the Family by Michael OndaatjeIn the late 1970s, Ondaatje returned to his home island of Sri Lanka. He chronicles his journey and traces the baroque mythology of his Dutch-Ceylonese family. An inspired travel narrative and family memoir by an extraordinary author. |
| 2. | The Village in the Jungle by Leonard Woolf This classic novel about colonial Ceylon was first published in 1913 and was written by a prominent member of the Bloomsbury Group, the husband of Virginia Woolf. It reads as if “Thomas Hardy was born between the heat, the scent, the sensuality and the piercing mystery of the tropics”. |
| 3. | Mosquito by Roma TearneTearne's first novel is about author Theo Samarajeeva, who returns to his native Sri Lanka after the death of his wife. Hoping to escape his loss, he finds himself in a friendship with an artistic young girl whose family is caught up in the growing uncertainty. |
| 4. | Chinaman by Shehan Karunatilaka Former cricketer WG Karunasena will spend his final months drinking, angering his wife, ignoring his son and tracking down the mysterious Pradeep Mathew, a fictional sports hero. On his search he will uncover a coach with six fingers, a secret bunker beneath a cricket stadium, a Tamil Tiger warlord and shocking truths about Sri Lanka, cricket and himself. |
| 5. | Wave: A Memoir of Life After the Tsunamiby Sonali DeraniyagalaDeraniyagala's memoir of the loss of her husband and sons in the Boxing Day 2004 tsunami is one of the best books ever written about grief. Deraniyagala and her husband, parents and two boys were on a family vacation in Yala National Park when the tsunami hit. |
| 6. | Cinnamon Gardens by Shyam SelvaduraiSet in 1920s Ceylon in the last days of colonial rule, this story takes us behind the lives of the elite living in a wealthy suburb of Colombo, revealing a world of fractured families, conflicting passions and lives destroyed by class hatred. |
| 7. | Elephant Complex: Travels in Sri Lanka by John Gimlette Whether hacking a path through the jungle, interrogating surviving members of the Tamil Tigers, or observing the stranger social aspects of Colombo city life, Gimlette brings a treasure trove of research and a gift for Wry to the page of humor. |
| 8. | Monkfish Moonsby Romesh GunesekeraMonkfish Moon's nine haunting stories expertly reveal a life shaped by Sri Lanka's tropical environment and disorientated by the country's resurgent violence. Gunesekera describes a paradise where a sudden moment of silence strikes fear in a city and where civil war destroys a marriage thousands of miles away. |
| 9. | The Tea Planter's Wifeby Dinah JefferiesNineteen-year-old Gwendolyn Hooper rises optimistically from a steamer in Ceylon, eager to join her new husband. But the man who greets her at the tea plantation is not the same man she fell in love with. The Tea Planter's Wife is a haunting, tender portrait of a woman forced to choose between her duty as a wife and her instincts as a mother. |
| 10. | Island of a Thousand Mirrorsby Nayomi MunaweeraBefore violence tore apart Sri Lanka's tapestry and stained its pristine beaches red, there were two families, two young women ripe for love and with hopes for the future, and a chance encounter that leads to their terrible legacy to be reckoned with for years to come. |
| 11. | Brixton Beach by Roma TearneThe story focuses on Alice, a little girl in a country on the brink of civil war. Alice's life will change forever. Soon she will set off for England, leaving behind her beloved grandfather and accompanied by her mother Sita, a woman broken by a series of terrible events. |
| 12. | Anil's Ghost by Michael OndaatjeAnil Tissera, a Sri Lankan-born, Western-trained forensic anthropologist, is sent by an international human rights group to identify victims of assassination campaigns. When Anil discovers that the bones found in an ancient burial site are those of a much younger victim, her search for a terrible truth begins. |
| 13. | On Sal Mal Lane by Ru FreemanOn the day the Herath family moves in, Sal Mal Lane is still a quiet street. As the neighbors adjust to the new arrivals, the children fill their days with cricket, romantic crushes and petty rivalries. But the tremors of civil war are mounting and the conflict threats to engulf them all. |
| 14. | The Road from Elephant Passby Nihal De Silva An army officer's routine mission to track down an informant near Jaffna turns into a nightmare when the Tamil Tigers launch a massive attack on the Elephant Pass camp. The two opponents are forced to flee together through rebel-held Wanni and the deserted Wilpattu National Park. |
| fifteen. | This Divided Island: Life, Death, and the Sri Lankan War by Samanth SubramanianA forensic account of the Sri Lankan civil war. Through travel and conversation, Subramanian explores how people reconcile with violence, how the powerful become cruel, and how victory can come to the task of reshaping memory and burying history. |
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