Historical fiction books set in Sri Lanka (9)
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1.
A Passage North by Anuk Arudpragasam EN
Sri LankaDescription:
SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2021 It begins with a message: a telephone call informing Krishan that his grandmother''s former care-giver, Rani, has died in unexpected circumstances, at the bottom of a well in her village in the north, her neck broken by the fall. The news arrives on the heels of an email from Anjum, an activist he fell in love with four years earlier while living in Delhi, bringing with it the stirring of distant memories and desires. As Krishan makes the long journey by train from Colombo into the war-torn Northern Province for the funeral, so begins a passage into the so... continue
2.
The seven moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka EN
Description:
WINNER OF THE 2022 BOOKER PRIZE A searing satire set amid the murderous mayhem of Sri Lanka beset by civil war Colombo, 1990. Maali Almeida, war photographer, gambler and closet gay, has woken up dead in what seems like a celestial visa office. His dismembered body is sinking in the Beira Lake and he has no idea who killed him. At a time when scores are settled by death squads, suicide bombers and hired goons, the list of suspects is depressingly long, as the ghouls and ghosts who cluster around him can attest. But even in the afterlife, time is running out for Maali. He has seven moons to try... continue
3.
Swimming in the Monsoon Sea by Shyam Selvadurai EN
Description:
Although life for Amrith in 1980 Sri Lanka seems rather uneventful and orderly, things change in a hurry when his male cousin arrives from Canada and Amrith finds himself completely enamored with his new visitor. The setting is Sri Lanka, 1980, and it isthe season of monsoons. Fourteen-year-old Amrith is caught up in the life of the cheerful, well-to-do household in which he is being raised by his vibrant Auntie Bundle and kindly Uncle Lucky. He tries not to think of his life before, when his doting mother was still alive. Amrith's holiday plans seem unpromising: he wants to appear in his scho... continue
4.
The Cat's Table by Michael Ondaatje EN
Description:
In the early 1950s, an eleven-year-old boy boards a huge liner bound for England - a 'castle that was to cross the sea'. At mealtimes, he is placed at the lowly 'Cat's Table' with an eccentric group of grown-ups and two other boys, Cassius and Ramadhin. As the ship makes its way across the Indian Ocean, through the Suez Canal, into the Mediterranean, the boys become involved in the worlds and stories of the adults around them, tumbling from one adventure and delicious discovery to another, 'bursting all over the place like freed mercury'. And at night, the boys spy on a shackled prisoner - his... continue
5.
Anil's Ghost by Michael Ondaatje EN
Description:
With his first novel since the internationally acclaimed The English Patient, Booker Prize—winning author Michael Ondaatje gives us a work displaying all the richness of imagery and language and the piercing emotional truth that we have come to know as the hallmarks of his writing. Anil’s Ghost transports us to Sri Lanka, a country steeped in centuries of tradition, now forced into the late twentieth century by the ravages of civil war. Into this maelstrom steps Anil Tissera, a young woman born in Sri Lanka, educated in England and America, who returns to her homeland as a forensic anthropolog... continue
6.
What Lies Between Us : A Novel by Nayomi Munaweera EN
Description:
Ganga, a young girl, grows up carefree in the midst of her loving family in an old and beautiful house nestled in the idyllic hill country of Sri Lanka. Her childhood is like any other—until it isn’t. A cherished friendship is revealed to have monstrous undertones and the consequences of trauma spell both the end of her childhood and that of her stable home. Ostracized by their community in the wake of one terrible night, Ganga and her mother seek safety by immigrating to America. In America Ganga must negotiate the challenges and thrills of an American teenage girlhood. She navigates immigran... continue
7.
Brotherless Night by V. V. Ganeshananthan EN
Description:
New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice • A courageous young Sri Lankan woman tries to protect her dream of becoming a doctor in this “heartbreaking exploration of a family fractured by civil war” (Brit Bennett, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Vanishing Half). “This book, a careful, vivid exploration of what’s lost within a community when life and thought collapse toward binary conflict, rang softly for me as a novel for our own country in this odd time.”—Nathan Heller, The New Yorker AN NPR BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • WINNER OF THE CAROL SHIELDS PRIZE FOR FICTION, THE WOMEN’S PRIZE... continue
8.
Cinnamon Gardens by Shyam Selvadurai EN
Description:
Selvadurai has captured horrifyingly well the airlessness of a society in which only a few are truly able to breathe, and deeply' Mary Loudon, The Times In Shyam Selvadurai's masterful second novel, set in repressive and complex 1920s Ceylon, the Cinnamon Gardens is a residential enclave of wealthy Ceylonese. Among them is Annalukshmi, an independent and high-spirited young teacher intent on thwarting her parents' plans to arrange her marriage. In a parallel narrative, her uncle, Balendran Navaratnam, respectably married but secretly homosexual, has his life disrupted by the arrival in Ceylon ... continue
9.
On Sal Mal Lane : A Novel by Ru Freeman EN
Description:
In the tradition of In the Time of the Butterflies and The Kite Runner, a tender, evocative novel about the years leading up to the Sri Lankan civil war * A Library Journal Best Indie Fiction of 2013 * A Largehearted Boy Best Book of the Year * On the day the Herath family moves in, Sal Mal Lane is still a quiet street, disturbed only by the cries of the children whose triumphs and tragedies sustain the families that live there. As the neighbors adapt to the newcomers in different ways, the children fill their days with cricket matches, romantic crushes, and small rivalries. But the tremors of... continue