Black Australian:

A Sri Lankan Australian Novel

By Ranga CHANDRARATHNE

Sunil Govinnage

As a special segment of Montage, dedicated to promoting and propagating English literature written by our expatriate writers with the objective of introducing new Sri Lankan English writings, Sunday Observer will serialise a previously unpublished novel by Sunil Govinnage, a Sri Lankan born, bi-lingual expatriate poet and writer who is now domiciled in Australia.

Following is an analysis of the novel.

The novel portrays the life and the journeys of a Sri Lankan born Australian with his roots in rural-urban background. The main protagonist with a long Sri Lankan name faces trials and tribulations in various cities in Australia and elsewhere due to his global roamings, and confusion of his cultural identity. As a result, he is being identified also as a 'Black Australian' in Europe. On another occasion he himself assumes this 'outsiders' identity displaying a hybride diasporic life evolving in Australia. Some of his travels take him to European cities such as Amsterdam and also to the paradise island, The Mauritius in the Indian Ocean.

The novel covers a significant part of the protagonist, Vidana Pathiranalage Siripala Wickramasinghe's journeys in Australia from the far off Cairns in Queensland to Australia's Kimberley Region in the North West. In his travels, Siri meets, Aborigines, local fellows, Sri Lankan expatriates and some strange characters who are not previously represented in Sinhala or English writings of Sri Lankan origin.

In some respect, Siri Wickramasinghe who hails form a rural Sri Lankan village has no firm roots even in his native country because of his teacher parents' movements into various parts of the Island. However, they finally settle down in a small village near Kurunegala which he frequently visits to see his mother after his father's death.

Siri lived in Sri Lanka until he completed his university studies except for a period of nine months when he studied as a high school student under an Australian scholarship in Western Australia where he moves into settle down in the mid 1980s. He also meets his future Sri Lankan wife, Rajini, a Sri Lankan born Tamil accountant who grew up in Melbourne in Perth. After a brief and happy life, their marriage breaks down partially due to political, cultural and personal incompatibilities.

Ajith Samaranayake reviewing Govinnage's short stories in Sunday Observer made the following observation about the plight of the protagonist of the novel:

"Govinnage sketches the Australian scene dexterously. On his first day at work Siripala Wickramasinghe is told that his name sounds funny and with typical Aussie insouciance it is suggested that he shorten his name to Singh. When he protests that this might make him sound a Sikh he is informed that there is a Tamil called Frank because that is what his wife calls him although his real name is Bala. The upshot is that the name is shortened to Siri, Aussie being great people at shortening names although Wickramasinghe, of course, is a bit of a mouthful.

The tone here is light but the story has an ironic edge. The Aussies don't care for Wickramasinghe's lineage but as he tries to explain to the puzzled Darryl any other Sinhalese would know from his name what his origin is, the fact that he is not a Tamil, and even his caste. But the whole point is that if Siri is to become integrated into Australia he will have to shed that whole race-caste baggage he has brought from Sri Lanka. In 'The Black Australian' Siri in Amsterdam allows himself to be mistakenly identified as a Black Australian although he is no Aborigine. But then who is he?"

The novel consists of 14 standalone chapters and they describe Siri's life and travels providing deep and sharp insights into the expatriate Sri Lankan life styles in a global context. One unique feature in the novel is the coverage of various unexplored geographical terrains as an integral part of the narrative discourse.

A version of one of the early chapters of 'The Black Australian' was completed in 1997 and was read at the 'Eighth Biennial Symposium on Literatures and Cultures of the Asia-Pacific Region' held in Perth in December 1997. This chapter was later included in Govinnage's first short story collection 'Black Swans and Other Stories' published in 2002. Another chapter of the novel based on Siri's travels in Sydney appeared in the prestigious journal 'Postcolonial studies' (vol 8 Issue 1) in 2005.

Commenting on Govinnage's short prose, Sydney based Australian academic Stephen Muecke writes:-

I like to think of Sunil Govinnage as a writer of the Indian Ocean , rather than having to think about him in terms of national identities, like Sri Lankan, Australian or even a sub-identity like black Australian. He is, after all, a resident of Perth, a city lapped by the ocean whose currents and winds link him to his place of birth. Also, the experiences reproduced in his writings transcend national boundaries, which is why I would join Wimal Dissanayake in evoking globalisation as one of the 'life conditions' under which his texts have emerged.

A figure of one of the many diasporic populations moving around the world, we find our narrator, for instance in Amsterdam, treating the conundrums of mistaken identity with irony, an irony which has a transcendent function: it shows the wisdom of laughing one's way out of identity politics and its endless assertions of the special case.

Which is a long way of saying, read before identifying! Don't trust the author to match up to your expectations. This, now, is-your-text to do something with, it will give you endless avenues for thinking, feeling and being.

You can stroll along these avenues enjoying the breezes of the Indian Ocean bringing flavours and perfumes of South Asia to these shores, and yet so much more; an intensity of experience and a tenderness of perception which make Sunil Govinnage one of the most unique and compelling writers to emerge-from anywhere-in recent years.

- Stephen Muecke, Professor of Cultural Studies, University of Technology, Sydney

Though written in short plain and lucid English, Govinnage's poetic diction has emerged in his maiden novel. We quote a brief passage which describes the end of Siri's journey to a famous beach resort-Cable Beach-in Broome, Western Australia.

When the dusk started settling, the blue sky which was visible as a part of the heaven began changing its colours. The azure blue mixing with pale red and purple colours stretched into the deep corners of the horizon.

The leader of the camel ride - a man who wore a white shirt and a pair of black shorts - led another brief journey without giving any directions. The tired camel herd were carrying happy tourists whose sole aim was to collect happy memories.

The visiting tourists wanted to carry as much memories as photographic images from this fascinating part of the earth. As the signs of hooves of tired animals disappeared on the foreshore, Siri hung onto a camel's hump on his own, and watched other happy tourists in pairs going down the Cable Beach.

He reflected on their journey-mere vanishing shadows on the beach, moving slowly forward, but as an impossible race against the inevitable dusk. In some respect Govinnage's English writings could influence our younger writers in many ways. Govinnage's exposure to literature began at the age of five when he read a Sinhala translation of Hans Christian Anderson's 'Snow Queen.' Sunil says: "I taught myself English when I was 17 years old; it was not hard, but it is a language that I'm still learning!"

We hope this novel will provide some unique aspects of a new generation of Sri Lankans who are becoming a large portion of global citizens who called more than one country a home.