Around the World in 80 Books discussion

Post any books set in Sri Lanka here.

Books set in Sri Lanka:


Anil's Ghost by Michael Ondaatje
Cinnamon Gardens by Shyam Selvadurai
Running in the Family by Michael Ondaatje
Funny Boy by Shyam Selvadurai
Mosquito by Roma Tearne
Swimming in the Monsoon Sea by Shyam Selvadurai
A Disobedient Girl: A Novel by Ru Freeman
Reef by Romesh Gunesekera
Bone China by Roma Tearne
The Road from Elephant Pass by Nihal de Silva
The Hamilton Case: A Novel by Michelle de Kretser
Not Quite Paradise: An American Sojourn in Sri Lanka by Adele Barker
Chinaman: The legend of Pradeep Mathew by Shehan Karunatilaka
The Fountains of Paradise by Arthur C. Clarke
July by Karen Roberts
Love Marriage: A Novel by V.V. Ganeshananthan
A Selection of Modern Sri Lankan Short Stories in English by Rajiva Wijesinha
Monsoons & Potholes by Manuka Wijesinghe
The Flower Boy by Karen Roberts
Island of Blood by Anita Pratap
The Giniralla Conspiracy ; Five Journals of Sujatha Mallika by Nihal de Silva
The Moon in the Water by Ameena Hussein
The Far Spent Day by Nihal de Silva
A Cause Untrue by David Blacker
Mythil's Secret by Prashani Rambukwella
Theravada Man by Manuka Wijesinghe
Zillij by Ameena Hussein
Paduma Meets the Sunbird by Nihal de Silva
Milk Rice: Stories for Children by Ameena Hussein
Blue: Stories for Adults by Ameena Hussein
The Far Field by Edie Meidav
Assignment Ceylon by Edward S. Aarons
An Historical Relation of the Island Ceylon in the East-Indies by Robert Knox
The Sri Lankan Loxodrome by Will Alexander
Relative Merits: A Personal Memoir of the Bandarabaike Family by Yasmine Gooneratne
The Unyielding Clamor of the Night: A Novel by Neil Bissoondath

More Books Set in Sri Lanka:


At the Water's Edge by Pradeep Jeganathan
The Match by Romesh Gunesekera
Tea Time with Terrorists: A Motorcycle Journey into the Heart of Sri Lanka's Civil War
When Memory Dies by Ambalavaner Sivanandan
Lives Other Than My Own by Emmanuel Carrère
The Luminist: A Novel by David Rocklin

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Brixton Beach by Roma Tearne (also set in UK)
The Jam Fruit Tree by Carl Muller (1st book of Burgher trilogy)
The Fountains of Paradise by Arthur C. Clarke
A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Cemetery by Carl Muller
Serendib by Jim Toner
Bodies in Motion: Stories by Mary Anne Mohanraj
Selected Short Stories by Martin Wickramasinghe
COLOMBO STREETS by Thisuri Wanniarachchi
Spit and Polish by Carl Muller
Traitor by Shobasakthi
Colombo: A Novel by Carl Muller
Living Their Lie by Brandon Ingram
Children of the Lion by Carl Muller
The Deception by Ananda Liyanage
The Python Of Pura Malai And Other Stories by Carl Muller
The Fairy Dance by Brandon Ingram
The Healer & the Drug Pusher by Daya Dissanayake
Serendipity by Ashok Ferrey
Man of Earth by Maggi Lidchi
Kat Bitha by Daya Dissanayake
The revolt in the temple by D.C. Wijewardena
Moonstone by Daya Dissanayake
Colpetty People by Ashok Ferrey
Inequality by Daya Dissanayake
The Good Little Ceylonese Girl by Ashok Ferrey
The Bastard Goddess by Daya Dissanayake
Love in the Tsunami by Ashok Ferrey
Monkfish Moon: Short Stories by Romesh Gunesekera
The Sweet and Simple Kind: A Poetic Account of a Nation's Troubled Awakening
Heaven's Edge: A Novel by Romesh Gunesekera
In the Same Boat by Channa Wickremesekera
A Selection of Modern Sri Lankan Poetry in English by Rajiva Wijesinha
The Sandglass by Romesh Gunesekera
In My Mother's House: Civil War in Sri Lanka by Sharika Thiranagama
A Year in Green Tea and Tuk-Tuks: My Unlikely Adventure Creating an Eco Farm in Sri Lanka
The Umbrella Thief by Sybil Wettasinghe
The Third Wave: A Volunteer Story by Alison Thompson
Posted in Colombo by Shizue Tomoda
The Legend of Pradeep Mathew: A Novel by Shehan Karunatilaka
Nirvana Effect by Craig Gehring
Love Cake by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha
Tamil tigress by Niromi de Soyza
Paradise Poisoned: Learning About Conflict, Terrorism and Development from Sri Lanka's Civil Wars

Acts of FaithbyRajiva Wijesinha

Madol Doovabyමාර්ටින් වික්‍රමසිංහ

Die SchmetterlingsinselbyCorina Bomann

Thanks for this list, Diane -- and thanks for adding to it, Mishma. Sri Lanka is a fascinating country, and I'm intrigued by several of these books.

I'll add a few nonfiction titles:

The Village in the Jungle Memoir by Leonard Woolf, Virginia's husband.

Island of Blood

Not Quite Paradise: An American Sojourn in Sri Lanka

Only Man is Vile: The Tragedy of Sri Lanka

M.I.A. And we shouldn't forget this art book from M.I.A., who was raised in Sri Lanka.

More of an anthropological study than a novel, it documents the culture and rituals of the Veddas, the aboriginal hunter-gatherer race in Sri Lanka, who will probably soon be fully absorbed into mainstream society.

Wild Ceylon by R.L. Spittel
Hard to come by but elegantly written and well worth reading if you can get it and have an affinity with wildlife and the jungle.

Stories From The History Of Ceylon For Children by Marie Musæus-Higgins
An important book for me because I grew up with European stories and wanted to also know the tales of Sri Lanka.

The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards by Kristopher Jansma

Chasing Chaos: My Decade In and Out of Humanitarian Aid by Jessica Alexander

Wave by Sonali Deraniyagala

Reef

Hernando Villa: A Sri Lankan Love Story by Terrence Perera

listening to this right now - Island of a Thousand Mirrors about the independance of Ceylon/Sri Lanka - and the persecution of the Tamil's

What Lies Between Us by Nayomi Munaweera

"Unsuitable Boys" by Terrence Perera

The novel commences as a delightful romantic comedy of errors where parents choose the wrong boys for their daughters and where the concept of arranged marriages in Sri Lanka is explored. Further, as a foil to these innocent young loves, there is the sordid affair of the uncle.
Nevertheless, the story takes a tragic turn when one parent, a powerful political figure, decides to terminate his daughter’s love affair by terminating the life of her lover!
The novel takes place in that sad period in Sri Lanka’s history where a “psychosis of fear” pervaded the country and disappearances, killings and abduction by “white vans” were the order of the day.
https://www.amazon.com/author/terrenc...

“Turmoil at the Villa” by Terrence Perera

“Turmoil at the Villa” is the sequel to “Hernando Villa”. The main theme of the book is that ancient old story of an upper-class boy falling in love with a lower-class girl. This theme is explored in an interesting manner in the context of Sri Lankan customs and attitudes. William, the younger brother, falls in love with a girl who the family regards as being far beneath them in social standing!
“Turmoil at the Villa” also deals with political intrigue and corruption in high places. Reshan Hernando, the head of the family, has long eschewed politics; but he is finally persuaded to contest a seat in Parliament and is subsequently appointed a Senior Cabinet Minister. He is a novice in this “dirty game of politics” and cannot see through the corruption and manoeuvrings that are taking place. When he finally does see what is going on and takes action, tragedy befalls the family. https://www.amazon.com/author/terrenc...

AN EXTRAORDINARY BOOK REVIEW!

5.0 out of 5 starsI'm Ready To Move to Hernando Villa!
By D.A. Wintsmith on May 29, 2016

I came to HERNANDO VILLA with no knowledge of Sri Lanka, Tamils, Sinhalese, or anything about their culture and history. I also came with an embarrassing tendency to confuse the name Sri Lanka with Shangri-La. So you can see the level of my complete ignorance. Still, HERNANDO VILLA was easily accessible to me as a reader.

The charming contemporary couple who own the Villa and their best friends seemed familiar to me, and I realized that I knew their counterparts here in the USA. There was a theme of family and couples humor throughout, set against the terrifying backdrop of recent racial violence, terrorist, and nature at her worst. The tendency in western literature is to write about dysfunctional families, and the Hernandos have their share of drama with secrets and meddling aunts and star-crossed lovers, but they go about it with class and style, and most importantly with concern for the human element of situations, which I have witnessed in everyday life but rarely see captured in books.

This is the kind of book one can go back to and live in for a while. The people are that pleasant, and yet not in the least dull. Well, not everyone is pleasant -- there is Aunt Margie who wants to rule the family but she gets her due, really more than her due finally. And there are the awful prospective husbands that the matchmaker keeps presenting to the families with eligible daughters. There is the racial bias that even families who are friends with people of different races and castes must deal with. And there is courage and heroism and tragedy. In short, it is life, captured in an easy read that makes you ponder without pontificating.
https://www.amazon.com/author/terrenc...

Sri Lankan and Zimbabwean Memories by Terrence Perera

The book is a collection of autobiographical reminiscences of the author’s life, mainly in Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe. The author has also lived in Australia, Zambia and Canada.
He came to Zimbabwe with his family in 1981 just after that country obtained independence. The book explores his personal experiences in Zimbabwe. It relates, particularly in the chapter, “The Mount Pleasant Sports Club”, of how the author overcame racial prejudices and formed intimate, lasting friendships with many of his White colleagues. https://www.amazon.com/author/terrenc...

Hernando Villa: A Review by Thulasi Muttulingam in Ceylon Today

The “Love Story” is between Nihal Hernando and Padma, the daughter of the Tamil family the Hernandos had rescued during the 1983 ethnic riots. That family had fled to Canada. But when it is time for Padma to marry, they send her back to Sri Lanka to find a “suitable boy” via the arranged marriage proposal system. They might be Canadian citizens now but they want Padma to marry a boy of their own race, religion and caste. Padma, who stays with her aunt in Wellawatte, is invited by the Hernandos to stay at their villa too, where she soon strikes up a friendship with Nihal and his sister Manel, who are close to her in age.
While the Hernandos and Rajanathans (Padma’s family) are close friends, both sets of families are horrified by the developing relationship between their son and daughter. It offends the notions of both the upper caste Sinhalese Christian parents as well as the upper caste Tamil Hindu parents. However, as befits educated parents of the 21st century, they bow to the inevitable (though not before various attempts to dissuade the two lovers), and accept the romance with grace.
The book is well crafted, with various threads being skillfully interwoven to give a colourful but real idea of Sri Lankan life, spanning different decades, cultures and societies. As if all that were not enough, Perera also manages to interweave aspects of the war, the race riots and the tsunami in, bringing to light different characters and how they were affected by it / acted through it.
For so ambitious an undertaking, there is nothing arduous in the book, either in the writing - or for the reader, in the reading. It is one of those “unputdownable” books that will keep the reader turning the pages to know what happened next. I read the book in one night.
https://www.amazon.com/author/terrenc...

The Boat People by Sharon Bala (also set in Canada)

Trouble in Nuala by Harriet Steel (1st Inspector de Silva Mystery)

More books set in Sri Lanka:


Acts of Faith by Rajiva Wijesinha
The Amazing Racist by Chhimi Tenduf-La
An Anthology of Modern Writing from Sri Lanka by Ranjini Obeyesekere
The Beach at Galle Road: Stories by Joanna Luloff
Beggar's Feast by Randy Boyagoda
Black Orchids by Gillian Slovo
Bridging connections by Rajiva Wijesinha
Buddhist Folk Tales from Ancient Ceylon by Dick De Ruiter
Buddhist Poetry and Colonialism: Alagiyavanna and the Portuguese in Sri Lanka
Butterfly Island by Corina Bomann
The Cage: The Fight for Sri Lanka and the Last Days of the Tamil Tigers
The Cat's Table by Michael Ondaatje
Children's Stories of Wit and Humor: Stories from Sri Lanka: by Chandrani Warnasuriya
China Bay Blues: Poetry and Photographs of Sri Lanka by Afdhel Aziz
The Cinnamon Peeler: Selected Poems by Michael Ondaatje
Cyril of Serendip: A Novel of Sri Lanka by Donald Eugene Smith
The Dark Side of the World by Roma Tearne
Days Of Despair by Rajiva Wijesinha
Elephant Complex: Travels in Sri Lanka by John Gimlette
Essential Ananda K. Coomaraswamy by Ananda K. Coomaraswamy

The Teardrop Island by Cherry Briggs

This Divided Island: Stories from the Sri Lankan War by Samanth Subramanian

My latest novel, Those I have Lost, is a World War 2 historical novel set in Sri Lanka (Ceylon).
Publication date: 9th July 2021.

Those I Have Lost

Island Witch by Amanda Jayatissa.

The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida