Warring Lusts: Eros and Thanatos in Lakdas Wikkramasinha’s Erotic(?) Poetry

By Pawan Madri Kalugala “…any woman I lust for, as I lust for death.” — Lakdas Wikkramasinha, "The Muse". **** Lakdas Wikkramasinha’s poetry is one of dichotomies; of warring dualities, conflicting energies, and fierce tugs in opposite directions. An aspect that repeatedly stands out in his poems is the tug-of-war between opposing forces which birth...

Weeraperuma’s Kelaart: A Different Lankan Gay Experience

By Vihanga Perera In queering their literature, Sri Lankan English Writers have habitually resorted to gay boys and men. From Arjun and Shehan in Shyam Selvadurai’s Funny Boy (1995), Kumaran and Naveen in Visakesa Chandrasekaram’s Tigers Don’t Confess (2011), Shehan (who is in love with Robbie, his Australian school mate) in Channa Wickremesekera’s Tracks (2015),...

Ondaatje & Halpe: “Lakdhas Wikkramasinha”

By W. Van Der Beck The collected works of Lakdhas Wikkramasinha (also spelt in other places as Lakdasa Wikkramasinha, Lakdas Wikkrama Sinha, and Lakdas Wikkramasinha), edited by Michael Ondaatje and Aparna Halpe , based in Canada, was released recently. The collection was in the works for a while and was launched in the New York...

A Decade of Uncertainty: Hasitha Wickremasinghe’s Post-war Impressions

By Vihanga Perera Hasitha Wickremasinghe Hasitha Wickremasinghe’s Connected by a Breath (2022) is a collection of 36 poems written over a decade and a half, from 2008 and 2022. This odd ratio between composition and time spent composing highlights an important aspect in this poet's work: that Wickremasinghe doesn’t force herself to produce with a...

Social Concerns & Buddhist Reflections in Suvimalee Karunaratna’s “The Mandara Flower Salon”

By Subhagya Liyanage The Mandara Flower Salon and Other Stories (2004) - one of Suvimalee Karunaratna's last collections in a career in a four-decade long creative writing career before the writer took robes - explores some salient socio-cultural features of Sri Lanka through a host of characters from many walks of life. Accompanying this social...

Spittel’s Wild Poetry: A Necessary Addition to Narratives of Remote Ceylon

Jungle river fold me in your noonday haze, Lave me in your waters shotted with the rays Of the golden sunlight gleaming through the green As you wander seaward on your rippling wings. Seaward, ever seaward, sighing as you wend, Softly o’er the level ways, burbling round the bend – Minstrel of the woodlands, when...

Promise Half Realized: Chanis Fernando-Boisard’s “The Ayah and Other Stories”

By Subhagya Liyanage What is most remarkable about Chanis Fernando-Boisard’s collection of short stories, The Ayah and Other Stories, is its range with regard to both setting and content. The stories in are set in a heady mix of exotic locales from France to Somalia and Laos. Its chief drawback, however, is that many of...

Some Defining Aspects of Palitha Ranatunge’s “My Epitaph for You”

By Vihanga Perera My Epitaph for You (2020) is Palitha Ranatunge’s third collection, after A Shifting in My Paradigm and The Crimson Sky, and arguably his best work to date. It consists of 41 poems of which the personal poems dominate the collection including a corpus notable for its expressions of anxiety, vulnerability, and moments...

“Weaver At Her Loom”: A Satisfactory Collection

By Subhagya Liyanage Ransiri Menike Silva’s Weaver at her Loom is an engaging, masterfully narrated collection of short stories which was awarded the State Literary Award for that genre in 2007. Despite a couple of stories that seem insubstantial (particularly seeming so in a collection of only 10 narratives), many of the stories are creative...

When the Writer is Outside History and Politics: “A Passage North”

By Vihanga Perera In 1983, Julia Leslie, a British writer, published a novel set in the years immediately after the youth uprising in April 1971. The book was titled Perahera and followed a story where a group of locals conspired to grab power by stealing the tooth relic of Gautama Buddha. The miscreants planned to...