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| Sunday, 15 August 2004 |
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Literary endeavour Sri Lanka's Modern English Literature (A case Study in Literary Theory) by Wilfred Jayasuriya Published by: Navrang in collaboration with Lake House Bookshop Price: Rs. 105 Wilfred Jayasuriya's Sri Lanka's Modern Literature - A Case Study in Literary Theory, is not the kind of book one would pick up for leisure reading. Not even if you were interested in Sri Lankan literature. Aimed more at the academic world, it is a book for the serious reader with something more than pure reading pleasure in mind. However, should you be fortunate or determined enough to have picked the book as the next reading choice, you won't be disappointed. For, within its unpretentious cover,is a body of work that offers a glimpse into a literary world that is by turn complex, challenging and accomplished. A book with multiple perspectives, it reveals a century of Sri Lankan English writing through historical summaries that begin with British writing and traces Christian, Tamil and Sinhalese strands that find their highest expression as a cultural phenomenon in the Sri Lankan poetry written in English. Literally a book on the bilingual, English speaking middle class of the early 20th century, the book explores the revivalistic effect of Sinhalese drama and fiction, the role of the Sri Lankan novel and short story in English the express the conflicts and turmoil of a post-colonial world and tentatively skirts the issues of whether or not Sri Lankan writing can legitimately express itself in English. The book should answer the question, but what emerges is a moderate view that despite the reality of contemporary political conflicts, English can be and is often the linguistic medium of expressing and joining the Sri Lankan and foreign cultures. This view is reinforced through a wide range of western and eastern literary theory and criticism placed within the specific field of colonial and post-colonial theory. |
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