Writing Sri Lanka: literature, resistance and the politics of place

What is the place of contemporary Sri Lankan literature in English within the wider postcolonial literary canon and context? How does the work of resident writers relate to that of internationally acclaimed writers such as Michael Ondaatje, Shyam Selvadurai and Romesh Gunasekera? And to what extent has Sri Lankan literary production at home and abroad been shaped by the civil war that continues to tear the island apart? These are some of the key issues addressed in this seminal study. Focusing on ways in which cultural nationalism has influenced both the production and critical reception of texts, Salgado offers a detailed analysis of eight leading Sri Lankan writers and rigorously challenges the theoretical, cultural and political assumptions that pit 'insider' against 'outsider', 'resident' against 'expatriate', and the 'authentic' against the 'alien'. By interrogating the discourses of territoriality and boundary marking that have come into prominence since the start of the civil war, Salgado works to define a more nuanced and sensitive critical framework that actively reclaims marginalised voices, and draws on recent studies in migration and the diaspora to reconfigure the Sri Lankan critical terrain

Vadivel's body

An uncanny autoethnographic account of a human rights case, detailing an encounter with Vadivel - a victim of Sri Lanka's civil war - and the story of his son who was tortured and killed by police

Nonlinear dynamics and the diasporic imagination

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Rebirth of a nation or 'The incomparable toothbrush': the origin story and narrative regeneration in Sri Lanka

I examine the post-Independence role of Sri Lanka’s origin story, revealing the ways in which the foundational myth of the Mahavamsa functions as a conflicted site of cultural ‘encompassment’ (Kapferer) in literary and political discourse. Through an analysis of the fiction of Tissa Abeysekara, Carl Muller and the assassinated president Ranasinghe Premadasa, I show how the scripting of this myth in fiction reveals a shift from the celebratory drives of nationalism to a critique of patriotism in a way that both reflects and anticipates a broader paradigmatic shift in the construction of belonging and the outsider found in post-war Sri Lanka

Towards a definition of Indian literary feminism : an analysis of the novels of Kamala Markandaya, Nayantara Sahgal and Anita Desai

In my thesis I study the work of Kamala Markandaya, Nayantara Sahgal and Anita Desai. I study the the formal and ideological developments of each writer individually and place her work within its social, cultural and historical context. I focus on the following four areas: 1) the formal preoccupations of each writer and her political 'message'; 2) the representation of women in their novels; 3) the intersection between Hindu ideology and ideals of passivity and suffering; 4) the treatment of specific forms of female suffering and oppression such as subordination within the joint family, sati, dowry deaths and the social ostracism of widows. I analyse seventeen texts in all: Markandaya's Nectar in a Sieve, A Silence of Desire, A Handful of Rice, Two Virgins and The Golden Honeycomb; Sahgal's autobiographies (Prison and Chocolate Cake and From Fear Set Free) and five of her novels (A Time To Be Happy, The Day in Shadow, A Situation in New Delhi, Rich Like Us and Plans For Departure); Desai's Cry The Peacock, Voices in the City, Where Shall We Go This Summer?, Clear Light of Day and In Custody. I reveal that the work of these writers shares seven key elements: formal plurality and ideological diversity; a thematic preoccupation with conceptions of nationhood; an affirmation of cultural and sexual difference; a development towards a feminist protest; the use of debate for the revaluation of national ideals; a selective form of protest; and the depiction and interrogation of fatalism and passivity. I suggest that these elements constitute a broad frame of reference in which Indo- Anglian women's literature can be set, and argue that current feminist literary theory must draw from the specific cultural and historical background of women's texts if it is to be of relevance to women from different parts of the world

Stories of Sri Lanka

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Nayantara Sahgal with Minoli Salgado

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When seeing is not believing: epiphany in Anita Desai's 'Games at Twilight'

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A little dust on the eyes

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Broken jaw

Broken Jaw is a beautifully orchestrated collection of eighteen stories set mainly in Sri Lanka. This brave and passionate book not only speaks against silences – official and unofficial – but also tests the limits of what can be said, reminding us that though it may be ten years since the civil war in the country ended, its legacy remains. These intricately crafted stories are at once enchanting and harrowing, full of resilience and courage, suffering and hope