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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
The house at the end of the road, the giant multiple-walled house at the end of the road without a telephone, or internet, without a satellite dish, without rubbish—the residents burned what…
Now that the men in black Have descended the machines Silently, Like nocturnal birds of prey And stalked and slain the beast That taunted them For a long, miserable decade, Now that…
: The numbers do not add up. Census says 430,000 people resided in the Vanni mid-2008. A year later, 290,000 are shepherded by the Army into “welfare centers” where one hundred men,…
In the mist that blows over the field at Lima Cricket near the Pacific, moist, cool air lets the wicket breathe and the crack of bat on ball sing like a memory…
Though the barbed wire, I am looking down the road of memory. Selvam, my Selvam, I am waiting for you To bring back our lost life. You grabbed my hand hard and…
To spoil a party, call the police to enforce noise laws or prohibitions against drinking by minors, we can understand as a necessary if unpleasant right of a neighbor who cannot sleep…
My Tamil DNA, inherited from generations before, and the genes lined up along it, have now been analyzed: 99.99 percent the same as a Sinhala fellow’s 99.90 percent the same as a…
The moon rises to the top of the Eiffel Tower. Dreaming, I take the rifle and shoot my own heart. Now our New Year has no moon. The streetlamps of La Chappelle…