Extra Time
The latest news from the family-run, once independent island, is the appointment of a presidential committee to decide upon which recommendations to adopt regarding the erstwhile ethnic question, which has been subsumed…
Poetry
Defending the Country
They cry foul in that cauldron of a news room, saying these human rights defenders are traitors, publishing their names and photographs, inciting fears of death squads preparing to drive white vans…
Off the Field
In the end we have only ourselves to pick up from the grass, the bed, the gymnasium floor. The dead will have their say in dreams, and fond ones too, how the…
We Are Resolved
Sri Lanka is small but the government thinks big, always has; since independence its growth rate in ministries and delegations the envy of Asia, and now defeat of the resolution the charge…
The Island Abstains
The decision by the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka to abstain from the General Assembly vote calling for an end to violence in Syria, and stepping down of its president, cannot…
Killer Representative
I am assembling the scene, a local hood and his gang come to a Christmas Eve gathering at a beach hotel, want to dance with foreign women, see a bloke from town…
Measuring (After Nandikadal)
An embarrassment, to forget over short eats, ignore the bundle on his back, that sloshed set of poetry he cannot avoid carrying, an appendix, reptilian brain, fascination with naming elements of the…
A Fisherman Testifies
I learned from Sri Lanka to go overboard, to flounder in the deep ocean while Navy sailors beat me with sticks, and cut my nets, and round me up as the country’s…
Prescient
When Lasantha wrote the editorial that predicted his imminent assassination he suggested the civil war would turn steadily uglier, then move inwards, as a lizard searching for its tail, insidious in the…
Cheran
He is writing history, where he lives, when he travels, to Denmark, Singapore, Tamil Nadu, Toronto. Edward Said wrote about Palestinians, Rudramoorthy Cheran, Tamils. News that my friend has suffered a mild…
Climate-Induced
Plantain leaves, steaming yellow rice, katta sambol, seer fish, passion fruit, the island’s culinary pleasures I think of first, batting then for a day, stopping for lunch and tea, but this strain…
For those who have missed out and want to know humanity
Belated, but worth it. I read through this collection of Sinhala poems by a Sinhala “creative activist” friend, who moves the reader across the large canvass of responsible humanity, very solemnly holding…
The ‘coolest’ publisher of English books in Sri Lanka: In conversation with Sam Perera
Sam Perera, along with Ameena Hussein (see interview here) began the Perera Hussein Publishing House, a niche publisher based in Sri Lanka known to publish some of the most compelling contemporary writing…
Overseeing the Farm
Planning a visit home is not easy for a Tamil returning to Jaffna. First, he needs to fly into the international airport at Katunayake and pass through customs like any traveler. He…
umbrella over bird
we didn’t know we stopped: the undoing doing its disappearing the man himself —disappearing gone. what to do? muttering him through corners, hyde park; lincoln immemorial; where we said speakers should…
