my favourite book essay sri lanka

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My favorite book – grade 6.

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I enjoy reading different books. One of the most interesting books I’ve read is Madolduwa. Its author is Martin Wickremasinghe, better known as the thinker of Koggala. This precious book was written in 1947. The theme of this book is the adventures and adventures of a group of stray children on an island trip. The main character is Upali Giniwella. He lives with his father and stepmother. He escaped home with Jinnah and went to Madolu Island. They farmed there and made money. Their work is later praised by foreign tourists. The story of Madol Duwa used to be wonderful.

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11 comments.

very good essay

its very informative. keep it up

Essay on My Favourite Book for Students and Children

500+ Words Essay on My Favourite Book

Essay on My Favourite Book: Books are friends who never leave your side. I find this saying to be very true as books have always been there for me. I enjoy reading books . They have the power to help us travel through worlds without moving from our places. In addition, books also enhance our imagination. Growing up, my parents and teachers always encouraged me to read. They taught me the importance of reading. Subsequently, I have read several books. However, one boom that will always be my favourite is Harry Potter. It is one of the most intriguing reads of my life. I have read all the books of this series, yet I read them again as I never get bored of it.

Harry Potter Series

Harry Potter was a series of books authored by one of the most eminent writers of our generation, J.K. Rowling. These books showcase the wizarding world and its workings. J.K. Rowling has been so successful at weaving a picture of this world, that it feels real. Although the series contains seven books, I have a particular favourite. My favourite book from the series is The Goblet of fire.

When I started reading the book, it caught my attention instantly. Even though I had read all the previous parts, none of the books caught my attention as this one did. It gave a larger perspective into the wizarding world. One of the things which excite me the most about this book is the introduction of the other wizard schools. The concept of the Tri-wizard tournament is one of the most brilliant pieces I have come across in the Harry Potter series.

In addition, this book also contains some of my favourite characters. The moment I read about Victor Krum’s entry, I was star struck. The aura and personality of that character described by Rowling are simply brilliant. Further, it made me become a greater fan of the series.

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What Harry Potter Series Taught Me?

Even though the books are about the world of wizards and magic, the Harry Potter series contains a lot of lessons for young people to learn. Firstly, it teaches us the importance of friendship. I have read many books but never come across a friendship like that of Harry, Hermoine, and Ron. These three musketeers stuck together throughout the books and never gave up. It taught me the value of a good friend.

Further, the series of Harry Potter taught me that no one is perfect. Everyone has good and evil inside them. We are the ones who choose what we wish to be. This helped me in making better choices and becoming a better human being. We see how the most flawed characters like Snape had goodness inside them. Similarly, how the nicest ones like Dumbledore had some bad traits. This changed my perspective towards people and made me more considerate.

Finally, these books gave me hope. They taught me the meaning of hope and how there is light at the end of the tunnel. It gave me the strength to cling on to hope in the most desperate times just like Harry did all his life. These are some of the most essential things I learned from Harry Potter.

In conclusion, while there were many movies made in the books. Nothing beats the essence and originality of the books. The details and inclusiveness of books cannot be replaced by any form of media. Therefore, the Goblet of Fire remains to be my favourite book.

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Top 10 Greatest Novels of Martin Wickramasinghe

August 13, 2011 By Achintha Bandara Leave a Comment

“Great literature is simply language charged with meaning to the utmost possible degree….” Ezra pound- How to read

I remember, when I was in my childhood when people ask me, ‘Who is your favorite writer and what is the book you love the most’. Then the answer was simple. It was Martin Wickramasinghe and the book was Madol Duuwa.

The milestone of Modern Sinhala Literature

He is a good storyteller, an inspiring thinker, and a good philosopher as proved in his work, which is more than hundreds of books and thousands of paper articles. Though Wickramasinghe is considered in the academic crowd, as a good philosopher, he is most popular as the great novelist/ author/ writer of Sinhalese literature arena.

Out of the the numerous great books published by him in Sinhalese or in English, I have selected ten greatest and most popular novels by this inspirational writer. They are: Rohini (1929) Ape Gama (1940) Gamperaliya (1944) Madol Duuwa (1947) Yuganthaya (1949) Viragaya (1956) Kaliyugaya (1957) Upandaa Sita (1961) Kaluwara Gedara (1963) Bawa Tharanaya (1973)

Madol Duuwa (1947) – As the most popular book of Martin Wickramasinghe, it plays the role of the most abundant Sri Lankan novel. Upali Giniwelle and his servant friend Jinna play the main roles of this novel as notorious youngsters who explore their lives outrunning their parents. After make off from home Upali and Jinna find the isolated small island Madol Duuwa, situated in the middle of Koggala tank. They cultivate this land and gradually become standard businesspersons. The story of these two youngsters has been created by Wickramasinghe as an adventure which enchants the reader till the end. More than a half a century of prints have been published so far as it is highly accepted by the Sri Lankan litterateurs.

Rohini (1937) – is the book that firstly written out of these 10 books which carries a historical epic. The legendry affair between Athula and Rohini is the subject of this novel. Athula, a war hero from the Army of King Dutugemunu, falls in love with the young princess Rohini, whose father is a minister of King Elara. Princess Rohini is also proposed to her father’s diplomatic friend Mithra, from the same Elara’s party.Yet there is a romantic story flows through the novel Wickramasinghe tend to emphasis the critical political issues hidden behind as well. The novel is also recommended as the Sinhalese Literature fiction for the Junior School Certificate Examination in 1937.

Ape Gama (1940) – the typical soulful explanation of the rural life and the atmosphere is also one of the prime books written by Martin Wickramasinghe. When reading this book you will feel how smoothly he has described the every single experience of his village life. Even though this is mostly identified as a children’s book it entertains the other readers as well. I highly recommend this book for all kinds of readers, as they can enjoy it thwarting all barriers.

Gamperaliya (1944) – is the first book of Wickramasinghe’s most popular Trilogy (Tun Eduthu Nawakatha). Based on the rural feudalistic family of Muhandiram Kaisaaruwatte, this novel flows over three generations accomplishing writer’s needs of character development. The way that historical politics functions on the rural feudalistic families and the emergence of a new middle class society is drastically described in this novel wrapped in a dramatic story. Piyal the benchmark of this new social class gradually attacks this feudalistic society and the relationship between him and Nanda; the daughter of Kaisaaruwatte plays the transitional situation of this class struggle. Tissa; brother of Nanda, is the linking factor to the trilogy as he appears in each three novels.

Kaliyugaya (1957) – the second of the seriescan be identified as the best explanation ever appeared in explaining the social class transition during the post- colonization stage. Social uplifting of the newly formed social class consists of feudalistic Nanda and lower middle class Piyal with the presence of the money factor is indicated in this particular novel. Therefore it would be really interesting to you to understand what has really happened in the Sri Lankan context during the post- colonization period.

Yuganthaya (1949) – as the final part of the trilogy is the best book that shed light on the collapsing of this upper middle class Sri Lankan society and emergence of a new capitalistic society. Based on the social struggle between upper middle class Saviman Kabalana (Son- In- law of Piyal and Nanda) and the venture capitalist Wiharahena from Deniyaya this novel flows under numerous social disputes. This novel ends with the formation of modern political tradition which consists of English spoken, foreign educated capitalistic people who had the socialistic ideas, like Malin Kabalana. And also Yuganthaya explains the polarization of the human political and social interests based on their political ideology using the characters Malin Kabalana and Aravinda Wiharahena. If you are interested in Sri Lankan political transitions you should read this book with reference to the day to day political stereotypes.

Viragaya (1956) -is the novel that considered as one of the best novels that explain persons’ obscure characteristics ever written in Sri Lankan modern literature. Aravinda, Bathi and Sarojini are the main characters of the novel. In Viragaya, Wickramasinghe tries to explain their characteristics which are ambiguous, mystic and complicated. Aravinda is indisputably accepted as the typical Sri Lankan youth character that appears in a novel.

Upandaa Sita (1961) – Autobiography of late Martin Wickramasinghe is one of the other books that you should read. Even though it is a personal experience book, it is highly recommended as a masterpiece to the life style management. Experience from his village, through the carrier as a journalist and most importantly influence of own experience in his literature work is included in this biography. Therefore it is most similar to a Diary- novel such as La Nuste by Sean Paul Sarthe.

Kaluwara Gedara (1963) – If you are interested more in the social class struggle of Sri Lanka you might also need to read Kaluwara Gedara. Kaluwara Gedara is too based on a rural family and its development during decades with the presence of social, cultural, political and economic circumstances. As in many works of Martin Wickramasinghe, this book is also keen in explaining the social status of a certain period of the Post- colonization period, as one of the heavy transitional period that appeared in Sri Lankan social history.

Bawa Tharanaya (1973) – is one of the most controversial novels which caused a series of heavy arguments between scholarly traditions. It is mainly based on the life of Prince Siddhartha, before and after of renunciation of household life. Considering Lord Buddha as a human being that proven higher ideological and philosophical values, Wickramasinghe tends to create his own explanation about the Buddhist culture. Therefore this novel has been confronted numerous arguments and stigmatizations by the conventional Buddhist society. Yet it is argued by some of the scholars, it is undoubtedly accepted by the readers as one of the practical readings about the Buddhist concepts.

You may also like to read my other post on Greatest Sri Lankan Books (Novels) of all time

Achinthya Bandara is a final year B.A. Sinhala Special degree undergraduate of University of Colombo. He also studied in La Trobe University in Victoria, Australia.

Related: Greatest Sri Lankan Books (Novels) of all time Read good books to transform your life What books to buy @ BMICH book fair Download school text books free

මාර්ටින් වික්‍රමසිංහ සූරින්ගේ කෘතිි

ළමා සාහිත්‍යය බාලෝපදේශය – 1903| ගලිවරායනය -1932 | රජවෙන්නට ගිය මහත්තයා-1932 | දඩු මොණරය -1932

ජිව විද්‍යාව කුරුමිණි සත්තු -1929 | කුරැකුහුඹු සත්තු-1930 | වෙස් මාරු කරන සත්තු-1931 | මුහුදු වෙරළ-1932 සත්ව ලෝකය-1936 | විද්‍යා විනෝද කතා-1957

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World » Asia » Sri Lanka

The best books on sri lanka, recommended by razeen sally.

Return to Sri Lanka: Travels in a Paradoxical Land by Razeen Sally

Many visitors to Sri Lanka have been beguiled by its charms, from its hill towns to its beaches, its ancient temples to its friendly people. And yet, for a quarter of a century until 2009, it was torn apart by a brutal civil war. Here, Sri Lanka-born political economist Razeen Sally , author of Return to Sri Lanka: Travels in a Paradoxical Land , recommends the best books to get a better understanding of Sri Lanka and the complexities that make the country so fascinating to visit and read about.

Interview by Sophie Roell , Editor

The Sri Lanka Reader: History, Culture, Politics by John Clifford Holt

An Historical Relation of the Island Ceylon by Robert Knox

The Road to Peradeniya: An Autobiography by Ivor Jennings

When Memory Dies by A. Sivanandan

Running in the Family by Michael Ondaatje

The best books on Sri Lanka - The Sri Lanka Reader: History, Culture, Politics by John Clifford Holt

1 The Sri Lanka Reader: History, Culture, Politics by John Clifford Holt

2 an historical relation of the island ceylon by robert knox, 3 the road to peradeniya: an autobiography by ivor jennings, 4 when memory dies by a. sivanandan, 5 running in the family by michael ondaatje.

Y ou were born in Sri Lanka and lived there until you were 12. You then rediscovered it as an adult so, in a way, you’ve experienced it as an outsider as well. Before we get to the books, I wondered whether, as an introduction, you could tell me why Sri Lanka is such a fascinating place to discover?

The attraction of Sri Lanka beyond that, for me, is all wound up with being half Sri Lankan and having been born and spent my childhood there, and then coming back to write a travel memoir about the country. My main fresh discovery, traveling around the island properly, was the back-of-beyond places that I didn’t really get to see as a child. Getting under the skin of people in these places, walking all over the landscapes, was just wondrous. I can’t think of anywhere else—at least that I’ve been to—where in a comparable space you have as much variety of people, cultures, flora, fauna, and landscapes. You don’t have to travel long distances in Sri Lanka to come across something quite different. In a mid-sized island roughly the size of Ireland, you have an incredible variety.

The other thing I would point to about Sri Lanka is its baffling complexity. I call it ‘paradoxical’ in the subtitle of my book, and for a small country with a population of around 20 million, there are just so many contradictions. In the book, I say it’s a heaven-and-hell country, engulfed and consumed by its own extremes. The obvious paradox is this beguiling charm I mentioned, especially of Sinhala-Buddhist culture in the lush, green wet zone, alongside an astonishing record of violence that leaves admiring foreigners completely puzzled and in a state of consternation. They just can’t explain it. That, among other contradictions, always puzzled me as a child, and they lingered with me during my three decades or so of absence. I suppose that central paradox of beguiling charm and violent eruptions was the really hard puzzle that I set off on my travels with, when I came back to rediscover Sri Lanka in my mid-40s.

So, that’s the attraction of Sri Lanka for me, in a nutshell.

I suppose to get a grip on these contradictions you need to have an understanding of the history?

Yes, which I knew little about until my mid-40s. I didn’t really get a sense of Sri Lanka’s many-layered history as a child. My school career was highly fragmented, back and forth between Britain and Sri Lanka: I think I changed schools 10 times before I turned 16.

On that note, let’s turn to the books and in particular The Sri Lanka Reader which you mentioned as the best place to start.

Of all the books I’ve read on Sri Lankan history, this is the one that I found best in terms of a sweeping overview of a blend of history, politics and culture, from many different angles and authors—as opposed to having, say, a textbook by one author. There is a rather good textbook on the history of Sri Lanka by Professor K.M. de Silva . That’s the one most people go to, especially if they’re not specialist historians.

But for an introduction that’s erudite and not superficial, The Sri Lanka Reader is the one I would go to. It came out about 10 years ago. It’s edited by John Holt, who is now emeritus professor at Bowdoin College in Maine. He’s a specialist on Buddhism and its relationship to Sinhala culture and has a long association with Sri Lanka. What he’s put together in this book are these very accessible short excerpts that cover the whole range of history—about 2,500 years of it—taking us all the way to the end of the Civil War in 2009. Some of the authors are long dead, some still living.

Can you give me a sense of the kind of excerpts that he includes?

The very first entry, in the section on ancient and medieval history, is from the Mahavamsa , the national epic. It translates from the Sinhala as ‘Great Chronicle.’ There are many chronicles, but this is the one that’s really elevated to Olympian status. It was written by a leading monk, Mahanama Thera, in the fifth century CE, most probably. He was the abbot of one of the three main monasteries in the capital city of Anuradhapura and an uncle of a king. The Mahavamsa is very tendentious. It presents about 1,000 years of history, up until the fifth century CE, with Theravada Buddhism and Sinhala kingship and the alliance between the two in the foreground. Its style is what we would today probably call ‘magical realism’. The Buddha flew three times—before the age of flying machines—from North India to Sri Lanka. He said on his deathbed that Sri Lanka would be the cradle of his religion after his death. The founder of the Sinhala race, Vijaya, was the issue of the union between a lion and an Indian princess, and so on.

There is also a short account from Ibn Battuta’s travels on his stay in the 14th century, and a fifth-century account from a Chinese pilgrim monk, Faxian, about his visit to the Anuradhapura kingdom.

“I can’t think of anywhere else…where you have as much variety of people, cultures, flora, fauna, and landscapes”

Then there is a long middle section on the colonial encounter, which was roughly 150 years of Portugal, 150 years of the Netherlands, and 150 years of the British before independence in 1948. It’s probably the longest colonial encounter of any country in Asia.

I suppose my favourite entry in the book is from Leonard Woolf’s memoirs. He was in the Ceylon civil service for seven years in the early 1900s, and married the more famous Virginia when he returned to London. He was much more interested in the locals than he was in what he considered to be rather boring and pompous fellow colonial officials and their families. He wrote a marvelous novel, The Village in the Jungle , which is still famous in Sri Lanka. His second volume of memoirs, Growing , is set in the Ceylon of the period just over a century ago.

The Sri Lanka Reader ends with a short “Political Epilogue,” taking account of the end of the Civil War. The leading entry is by an eminent Sri Lankan journalist, Lasantha Wickrematunge, who wrote an editorial in his paper, the Sunday Leader, predicting his murder at the hands of the government. He criticized the government mercilessly, because of human rights violations and corruption, with the instruction that the article was to be published in the event of his murder. It was published on January 11th, 2009.

So the book covers a very, very broad spectrum and is highly readable.

You mentioned that the editor of this book, John Clifford Holt, is an expert on Buddhism. That’s a very important part of the story of the Civil War, isn’t it, the connection between politics and religion? Could you say a bit about that for people who don’t follow Sri Lanka closely?

Buddhism in Sri Lanka, whether you’re writing a travel memoir, as I did, or a history or current affairs book, is the proverbial elephant in the room. You can’t avoid it. Ethnic Sinhalese are roughly three-quarters of the population, and about two-thirds of the population are Sinhala Buddhists (other Sinhalese being mainly Christian). The long laborious process of writing a book got me much deeper into Buddhism in Sri Lanka than I ever did as a child and got me to go into the history of it.

What you see today is a ritualistic, almost pagan worship because Sinhala Buddhists tend to worship a whole range of gods and spirits with the Buddha as the central character in the pantheon. This has little to do with original Buddhism. That’s combined with a Buddhism that, particularly since independence, has become highly politicized and involved with money and business, including lots of shady characters. It drives a chauvinist, supremacist, even racist political agenda. So that’s the Buddhism that the observer sees on the surface.

The origins of this go back to the founding of Buddhism in Sri Lanka, because when Buddhism came, sometime in the third century BCE, it was linked to Sinhala kings in the Anuradhapura kingdom from the outset. That political connection has always been there and was only interrupted during the colonial encounters with the Portuguese, Dutch and British. It was then restored with independence. It was Theravada Buddhism which really got anchored in Sri Lanka and came to monopolize Sinhala Buddhism. It tends to be doctrinally very conservative, without much evolution over 2000 years or more.

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The paradox is that for most of this time, Buddhism in Sri Lanka tolerated other religions, and there was a lot of syncretism. If you go to a Buddhist temple in Sri Lanka today, you will see Buddha statues worshipped alongside Hindu gods without worshipers thinking anything of it. You will see a lot of Hindu influence, particularly from Shaivite Hinduism in South India, which most Tamils in Sri Lanka practise. There are also Mahayana influences—because Mahayana coexisted with Theravada probably for the best part of 1,000 years before Theravada erased formal Mahayana religious orders and worship.

Let’s go back in time, then, to the 17th century and a book by Robert Knox, who was a prisoner in Sri Lanka. It’s called An Historical Relation of the Island Ceylon and it was published in 1681, when it caused quite a sensation. Tell me about that book, and why you’ve chosen it as a good one to read on Sri Lanka.

I think Robert Knox has a good claim to be the most important foreigner who lived in Sri Lanka in its recorded history because of this book. It’s still very readable and captures very vividly the politics, culture, and landscapes of the Kandyan kingdom in the central highlands of Sri Lanka in the middle of the 17th century. Knox was in captivity there for 19 years and the book is all the more remarkable because he wrote the first version in one go on the ship back from Batavia (what is now Jakarta) to London, completely from memory, because in captivity he never had access to pen and paper. A lot of accounts of that period, and in the centuries afterwards, were either made up or plagiarized or both. In his case, most of it has been corroborated by historical research. It’s fairly accurate, and indeed was used as a key reference by colonialists who had their eye on Ceylon in the 18th century, especially the British.

The author himself is absolutely fascinating. He led as varied a life as one could imagine. He took to sea early. He was on his father’s trading ship, the Anne , on its way to Fort St. George in Madras (occupied by the British at the time) when it lost its mast somewhere off the east coast of Ceylon and ran aground. He and his shipmates were captured by soldiers of the Kingdom of Kandy and taken inland to the hill capital and held captive there. His father died after the first year, and many of his other shipmates succumbed to drink and malaria. A few of them made it back to the mother country eventually.

For Knox, acquiring a copy of a King James Bible was top of the agenda. That was the only book he had: he read it and quotes from it assiduously. He says he took an oath of celibacy. He was relentlessly resourceful. He built his own houses, did market gardening and animal husbandry, knitted cloth caps, and walked around the kingdom as a pedlar. The reason he couldn’t escape is because the Central Highlands have a ring of mountains around them, a natural frontier. In those days it was covered by jungle and wild animals and was without roads. All the while Knox was observing very keenly and plotting his escape, which he eventually managed in 1680, through the animal-infested jungle to Dutch controlled territory, and eventually he made his way back to London.

The book became an instant bestseller. I think its wider legacy—going beyond what it has to say about the Sri Lanka and the Kandyan kingdom of the time—is that in all probability, Knox was the model for Daniel Defoe ‘s Robinson Crusoe . The setting was somewhere else and the man who was stranded on a desert island was Alexander Selkirk. But we know that Defoe read that first edition of Knox’s book and was highly taken by it. When it comes to the descriptions of the resourcefulness of Robinson Crusoe, that’s Knox, not Alexander Selkirk.

For me, of central interest is what Knox has to say about the Kandyan kingdom of the time—and it’s not just of historical interest. It resonates with what goes on in politics and culture in Sri Lanka today.

In what way?

I quote some of the relevant passages in my book. Knox refers to the king of the time, Rajasinghe II, as an absolute tyrant. He indulged in wanton cruelty, invented methods of torture and had absolutely no regard for people’s human rights as we would nowadays call them. He threw people in jail at the drop of a hat, there was no real rule of law, and the justice administered by the nobility was for sale. Much of that rings true in Sri Lankan politics today.

Kandyan society was highly caste-riven at the time. The king was the only person allowed to sit on a stool with a high back and only the nobility could sit on stools. Everybody else had to sit on the floor. Now, that’s not how quite how things work in the Central Province of Sri Lanka today, where the hill capital of Kandy is located, but it’s still probably the most conservative part of Sinhala Sri Lanka.

You mentioned the British. Let’s go on to Sir Ivor Jennings’s autobiography. He was sent by the British Empire to set up a university in Colombo and advised on the country’s post-independence constitution. Fill me in on who he was and why we should read his autobiography.

Not many people living today have heard of Ivor Jennings, either in Britain or in Sri Lanka, but I think he was probably the most important foreigner to have an influence on Sri Lanka in the 20th century, and his story is largely unsung. He came in 1941.

Again, his is an interesting biography. He grew up fairly poor in a non-conformist family in Bristol. He was raised with those non-conformist virtues of hard work, thrift and self-improvement through education. He was a scholarship boy and ended up where I taught much later: he was a professor of constitutional law at a very young age at the LSE in the 1930s. Then he came to Ceylon, which was the making of him. Over the course of almost 15 years, not only did he turn the University College of Ceylon—what he called a “Government cram-shop”—into one of the finest universities in Asia, but he also published prolifically on the law, politics and the economy of Ceylon. He was a leading player politically in the runup to independence because he effectively wrote Ceylon’s first constitution, which is known as the Soulbury Constitution. It’s named after the commission that was set up to turn Ceylon from a colony into a dominion, but it should be called the Jennings Constitution because it’s his draft with minor amendments that became the constitution of Ceylon for the first 24 years after independence. So, Jennings is important for all those reasons.

The book is called The Road to Peradeniya. Now, for tourists who have been to Sri Lanka, Peradeniya will ring a bell because it’s on the tourist trail. The Royal Botanical Gardens are sited at Peradeniya, which is about 10 miles from the hill capital of Kandy. Lord Mountbatten had his headquarters for South East Asia Command there during the Second World War. But, for me, Peradeniya is its university campus, which has a wonderful setting. I’ve seen many university campuses and I can hardly think of one to rival Peradeniya for its sheer loveliness. Ivor Jennings laid the groundwork for it in the early 1940s, in wartime, in the Meda Oya valley with the Hantane ridge of hills in the distance. He wrote 200 pages of delegated legislation to make sure it came to life after the war and he was its first vice-chancellor.

“It’s a heaven-and-hell country, engulfed and consumed by its own extremes”

The Road to Peradeniya is his memoir of his upbringing and career before he came to Ceylon, and then of his time in Ceylon until the early 1950s. He wrote it intending to raise funds for a new art gallery for the university, but it languished in his archive. His last official position was as vice-chancellor of the University of Cambridge, and he died in 1965. This memoir was discovered gathering dust in his archive and published in the mid-1990s, by a former librarian of Peradeniya University, the university Ivor Jennings founded.

The book is of interest, for me, for several reasons. It gives us a sense of where Ivor Jennings came from and what made him tick. Now he was clearly a rather dour workaholic. He had many Knox-like characteristics. He believed in the virtue of hard work, of resourcefulness. Most Ceylonese exasperated him because they were too laid back. He was self-made, while the elite he interacted with came from gilded families: they didn’t need to work for a living. When they retired for their gins and tonics come five or six o’clock in the evening, he would repair to his study to do his writing.

The book’s tone is razor-sharp, the sentences are short and simple. It’s quite unlike most South Asian writing, especially literary writing, which is luxuriant, with these very long meandering sentences full of big words. His style is quite the opposite. It’s plain, and often dripping with condescension and sometimes rather cruel mockery of the people he has to deal with.

He’s especially scathing of the political class, though he makes two exceptions: for Oliver Goonetilleke who became the Governor-General of Ceylon, and for Ceylon’s founding father D. S. Senanayake, the country’s first prime minister, for whom he wrote that constitution I told you about. But as for the rest—a phrase which sticks in my mind—he calls them “the Bloomsbury Boys of Cinnamon Gardens”. Cinnamon Gardens is the Chelsea or Mayfair of Colombo, where the beautiful people live, people who never had to work for a living, who inherited their houses and estates as well as the leadership of Ceylon in the run-up to independence and afterwards. He has a very low view of most of them, as well as of the undergraduate politicians he met in student union politics when he was vice-chancellor. He thought the British taught them to be capable talkers in English. They parroted cliches and slogans. They had a sense of entitlement. They took themselves very seriously. Their egos were bloated and their language bloviated, but they were incapable of—these are my words, not his—organizing a piss up in a brewery. He thought them rather venal characters who had a lot of potential for bribery and nepotism. And he thought they might ruin Ceylon, as it then was, in its post-independence years.

He was writing this in the early 1950s, when there was so much complacency about Ceylon. The experts at the time predicted a golden future for Ceylon, as they did for Burma and the Philippines—but not for places like South Korea or Singapore.

That was very striking in your book, how peaceful it was in those years after independence. Everything looked like it was on track, but then it went horribly wrong.

I think it started to go horribly wrong soon after Jennings left in 1955. There was a crucial election in 1956 when the leading politician of the time, S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike—who was subsequently assassinated by a Buddhist monk—played the language card, Sinhala First, ‘Sinhala Only’ as he called it. Then Sinhala became the exclusive official national language at the expense of Tamil and English. Arguably, Ceylon, later Sri Lanka, went downhill from there.

What’s striking is Jennings’s sense of foreboding, even when he was writing in those peaceful times. He thought that maybe there was something unpleasant lurking around the corner, though not his own constitution. He was too complacent about that, even though the safeguards for minorities were pretty weak. His constitution relied very much on the right people running Sri Lanka, but that didn’t last. The political class did ruin Ceylon, later Sri Lanka, with the help of Buddhist monks and many other contributory factors besides.

Let’s talk about When Memory Dies next, which I believe is your favourite political novel about Sri Lanka.

It’s a political historical novel, and covers three generations of Tamils: a grandfather, father and son. It spans almost the entire 20th century, from about the year 1900 to the outbreak of the Civil War in 1983. Its protagonists are very much wound up with the turbulent politics and racial divides of first pre-independence Ceylon and then later independent Ceylon and Sri Lanka.

The author, Ambalavaner Sivanandan, is Tamil and there are autobiographical traces in the novel. Like his alter ego, whose name is Rajan in the book, his ancestral village is a little village in the Jaffna Peninsula. He goes to Colombo’s leading Catholic school as a scholarship boy. He emigrates to the UK after the 1958 race riots, never to return. Sivanandan, in his later British incarnation, was the head of the Institute of Race Relations. He edited a journal called Race and Class which was the leading journal on racism and imperialism. His politics were left-wing, and there is a strong left-wing slant to the novel. Its characters seem to be carried along willy-nilly by these wider forces of class and race iniquities and inequalities.

The story I find gripping, there are many passages that are electrically charged. That includes a really overpowering scene which takes place during the 1958 racial troubles between the Sinhalese and Tamils. Rajan’s wife is raped and mutilated before his eyes, and she subsequently dies. That prompts a nervous breakdown and his emigration to the UK, never to return to Ceylon.

Let’s go on to the last book you’ve chosen on Sri Lanka, Running in the Family by Michael Ondaatje.

I suppose I’ve suggested it as the last book of the five for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it’s a thinly fictionalized novella. It’s quite a short, light read. You can read it in an afternoon or evening if you’re a fast reader (I’m not, I’m a very slow reader). Its tone is light, often hilarious, sometimes bittersweet. It evokes the generation of Michael Ondaatje’s parents and grandparents, particularly in the 1920s and 30s.

Most people think of Michael Ondaatje as a world-famous Canadian novelist who won the Booker Prize for The English Patient , which became an Oscar-winning film. He made his reputation first as a distinguished poet. Most of his writing has little to do with Sri Lanka, at least directly. But he was born and spent the first ten years of his life in old Ceylon. He left in the early 1950s. He’s of mixed minority parentage. Ondaatje is not actually a Dutch name, but a Chetty one. The Chetties are a caste of Indian moneylenders from South India, who came over from Chettinad under the British in the 19th century. That’s his father’s side. On his mother’s side he is a Dutch Burgher. The Burghers are the mixed-race descendants of first the Portuguese and then the Dutch. His mother came from a prominent Dutch Burgher family.

The Dutch Burghers, particularly the elite, did very well under the British and became very anglicized. English was their mother tongue and their cultural reference points were very much Old England. Many elite Burgher families had big tea or rubber or coconut estates. Michael Ondaatje’s grandparents and parents had this gilded upbringing, but a lot of this novella is about the squandering of family fortunes in a very carefree manner, hilarious along the way. It’s rather like the bright young things in Anthony Powell’s A Dance to the Music of Time . But there’s a twist to this tale because, of course, these tales never have a happy ending. Most of the characters ended up destitute. The males generally ended up as alcoholics, as did Michael’s father. That led to divorce and his mother had to take on menial jobs when she emigrated to the UK in order to put Michael and his elder brother Christopher through school. The brothers then emigrated to Canada. There’s a favorite ditty in Running in the Family that I reproduce in my book because it reminds me of some sweet drunks I came across in my childhood, who were also squandering family fortunes. Thankfully, I never saw how they behaved behind closed doors with their own families. A lot of those stories were very nasty, but what I saw in my father’s clubs were these well-off men drinking themselves slowly to death, and singing the odd ditty, rather like Michael Ondaatje’s father, who had his own take on My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean. It goes like this:

My whiskey comes over the ocean

My brandy comes over the sea

But my beer comes from F.X. Pereira

So F.X. Pereira for me.

F.X.… F.X.…

F.X. Pereira for me, for me.…

That kind of tone was very much part of my growing up in the 1970s, not with my own father, but with many of his friends and acquaintances. Reading that passage in Running in the Family reminded me of it. You can picture young Michael’s father sitting in a lounger on a very spacious estate bungalow veranda with a drink.

You’re quite similar to him, in a way, in terms of your relationship with Sri Lanka?

I suppose I left the country at a slightly older age than he did and my reconnection with Sri Lanka has, I think, been more in-depth and prolonged. At least until the pandemic struck, he did go back once every few years. I think he has a sister still living in Sri Lanka, but his actual connection with the country has been more distant for a long time, whereas for me, it’s come back to the center: it’s part of my foreground and a preoccupation.

Yes, because your day job is as an economist, and weren’t you an adviser to the Sri Lankan finance minister?

I did that for about three years, not under the present government, but under its predecessor. I had a ringside seat because I was an advisor to the Prime Minister and to the Minister of Finance. It’s the closest I’ve ever been to the coalface of real-world politics, having been a student and teacher of politics and economics for quite a while. It was a dispiriting experience, I have to say. It showed me how dysfunctional Sri Lankan politics is and how far beyond repair the political class is. But that’s it: my involvement is in the past tense. I haven’t been for almost two years because of the pandemic, but when I do go back to Sri Lanka, it will be simply as a citizen, as a traveller, as an observer.

January 2, 2022

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Razeen Sally

Razeen Sally is a Sri Lanka-born political economist. He served as an adviser to the Sri Lankan government for three years until 2020. He is director and co-founder of ECIPE , the European Centre for International Political Economy and also an Associate Professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore.

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21 Books on Sri Lanka That’ll Spark Your Wanderlust

Non-fiction books on sri lanka, wanna get free books, 1. the cage: the fight for sri lanka and the last days of the tamil tigers, by gordon weiss (2012), my rating: 4 out of 5 stars.

“The stage was set for a nation that in the achivement of its own identity and independence in 1948 saw denial of the identity of others in their midst–Tamils, Muslims, Christians–as their right.”

2. This Divided Island: Life, Death, and the Sri Lankan Civil War

By samanth subramian (2015), my rating: 5 out of 5 stars.

“Shrink the humanity of your enemy, and the fighting must seem easier, more just, less complicated. Warfare consists of several psychological tricks, not least the ones you play upon yourself.”

3. Elephant Complex: Travels in Sri Lanka

By john gimlette (2016).

“Until Sri Lanka, the world had never seen the suicide bomb, but by the early nineties they were moving quietly through the Colombo crowds.”

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4. running in the family , by michael ondaatje (2011), my rating: 3 out of 5 stars.

“But nothing is said of the closeness between two people: how they grew in the shade of each other’s presence. No one speaks of that exchange of gift and character — the way a person took on and recognized in himself the smile of a lover. Individuals are seen only in the context of these swirling social tides.”

5. The Seasons of Trouble: Life Amid the Ruins of Sri Lanka’s Civil War

By romini mohan (2015).

“Even in pre-independence Sri Lanka, or Ceylon as it was once known, school and college enrolment among Tamils exceeded that of other ethnicities in the country. Gradually, differences in educational attainment came to form the identities of the Tamil and Sinhalese communities, which grew into separate ethnic blocs, each of which considered itself wronged by the other.”

6. The Teardrop Island: Following Victorian Footsteps Across Sri Lanka

By cherry briggs (2013).

‘We were once called “the Pearl of the Indian Ocean’, but what do they say about us now?’ He looked at the map and began to trace the route Tennent had taken across the island. ‘It would be interesting to follow his route now and see how much has changed,’ he said thoughtfully, moving his finger along the coastline and deep into the jungle interior. ‘We think we have changed so much, but I expect in many ways we have not changed at all.’

By Sonali Deraniyagala (2013)

“I will kill myself soon. But until then how do l tame my pain?”

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Fiction books on sri lanka, 8. anil’s ghost, by michael ondaatje (2001).

“American movies, English books – remember how they all end?” Gamini asked that night. “The American or the Englishman gets on a plane and leaves. That’s it. The camera leaves with him. He looks out of the window at Mombasa or Vietnam or Jakarta, someplace now he can look at through the clouds. The tired hero. A couple of words to the girl beside him. He’s going home. So the war, to all purposes, is over. That’s enough reality for the West. It’s probably the history of the last two hundred years of Western political writing. Go home. Write a book. Hit the circuit.”

9. Cinnamon Gardens

By shyam selvadurai (2000).

“Annalukshmi folded her arms to her chest and prayed, not to God but to her better self, for the strength to wait, to hold fast to her ideals, even when there was nothing ot pin her dreams on.”

10. Funny Boy

By shyam selvadurai (2015).

“Right and wrong, fair and unfair had nothing to do with how things really were. I thought of Shehan and myself. What had happened between us in the garage was not wrong. For how could loving Shehan be bad? Yet if my parents or anybody else discovered this love, I would be in terrible trouble. I thought of how unfair this was and I was reminded of things I had seen happen to other people, like Jegan, or even Radha Aunty, who, in their own way had experienced injustice. How was it that some people got to decide what was correct or not, just or unjust?”

11. Island of a Thousand Mirrors

By nayomi munaweera (2014).

“We have learned not to care about the state of that other place even as it burns or drowns.”

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12. mosquito, by roma tearne (2007).

“You do not see how we have changed,” he said eventually. “We are so confused by this war. Sometimes I hear people arguing that it is the fault of the British. That even though they have gone, we still have an inferior feeling in us. Who can tell?” He shrugged, helplessly. “Our needs are so many, Sir, and our attitudes have because of them”

13. Noontide Toll

By romesh gunesekera (2010).

“So now, I find it hard to believe anything and end up knowing nothing. Never mind the media. I don’t even know whether we are living in a capitalist state or a socialist one., a non-aligned one or a crooked one. And when I try to compensate against my prejudices, I end up believing everything and nothing, as if we are living in a country without consequences.”

14. On Sal Mal Lane

By ru freeman (2013), my rating: 5 out of 5.

“God was not responsible for what came to pass. People said it was Karma, punishment in this life for past sins, fate. People said that no beauty was permitted in this world without some accompanying darkness to balance it out, and surely these children were beautiful. But what people said was unimportant; what befell them befell us all.”

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By romesh gunesekera (2014).

‘“The urge to build, to transform nature, to make something out of nothing is universal. But to conserve, to protect, to care for the past is something we have to learn, “ he would say.’

16. The Road From Elephant Pass

By nihal de silva (2011).

“How could anyone say, ‘My people were here a thousand years ago, so this land belongs us [sic]’? Someone else would have there earlier anyway. Even if one race or tribe lived there in ancient times, what of it? They moved and someone else lived there later. Those who made these claims often produce ‘evidence’, based on selective research, to support their position.”

17. The Tea Planter’s Wife

By dinah jefferies (2016).

“She felt poised at the point when life shakes itself up, and you have no idea where you’ll be standing when it settles in a new pattern, or whether you will be standing at all. What she did know was now that Laurence was not around, the battles lines had been drawn.”

19. The Village in the Jungle

By leonard woolf (1913).

“For the rule of the jungle is first fear, and then hunger and thirst. There is fear everywhere: in the silence and in the shrill calls and the wild cries, in the stir of the leaves and the grating of branches, in the gloom, in the startled, slinking, peering beasts. And behind the fear is always the hunger and the thirst, and behind the hunger and the thirst fear again.”

20. What Lies Between Us

By nayomi munaweera (2016).

“But here’s the secret: in America there are no good mothers. They simply don’t exist. Always, there are a thousand ways to fail at this singularly important job. There are failures of the body and failures of the heart. The woman who is unable to breastfeed is a failure. The woman who screams for the epidural is a failure. The woman who picks her child up late knows from the teacher’s cutting glance that she is a failure. The woman who shares her bed with her baby has failed. The woman who steels herself and puts on noise-canceling earphones to erase the screaming of her child in the next room has failed just as spectacularly.”

21. The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida

By shehan karunatilaka (2022).

“History is people with ships and weapons wiping out those who forgot to invent them. Every civilization begins with a genocide. It is the rule of the universe. The immutable law of the jungle, even this one made of concrete. You can see it in the movement of the stars, and in the dance of every atom. The rich will enslave the penniless. The strong will crush the weak.”

Final Thoughts

More books from around the world, are you on pinterest.

20 books to spark your wanderlust Sri Lanka

Wow Julie, who would have thought there were so many good reads about Sri Lanka?! I definitely need to get one of these before I am going there. Bucketlist material. Best regards, Elisa of flitterfever.com

Hi Elisa, Yes! There are so many good Sri Lankan writers. I had no idea before I went on my book journey through Hoi An what great writers Sri Lanka has.

“Sarasu amidst slums of Terror\” Lucky de Chickera”s Novel deserves a recommendation as I believe that it is an excellent book well worth reading on Sri Lanka during the war days.. It was short listed for the Gratian and commended for the State Literary Award,

Thank you for the recommendation!Sadly, it’s not possible to buy online in the U.S.

Strange Fruit by Afdhel Aziz should be added to your list

Thanks for the recommendation!

Brotherless Night by V.V. Ganeshananthan – Excellent read!

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My country Sri Lanka My country is Sri Lanka. It is an island situated in the Indian Ocean. It is known as the ‘Pearl of the Indian Ocean’. It is a beautiful country. The largest river in Sri Lanka is the Mahaweli and the highest mountain is Piduruthalagala. The highest waterfall is Bambarakanda. The capital [...]

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Kids Essays

The capital of my country is Sri Jayewardenepura Kotte and the commercial capital is Colombo. The president of my country is Hon. Maithripala Sirisena and the prime minister is Hon. Ranil Wickramasinghe.

Our national flag is called the Lion Flag. Our national flower is the Blue Water Lily, national tree is Na tree, national bird is the Jungle Fowl, national animal is the Giant Squirrel and our national sport is Volleyball. But Sri Lanka is famous for Cricket. The world’s best tea comes from Sri Lanka.

On February 4, 1948 Sri Lanka gained independence. Our national anthem is ‘Sri Lanka Matha’. The official languages in Sri Lanka are Sinhala, Tamil and English.

My country is a peaceful country where all the religions such as Buddhists, Christians, Muslims and Hindus all live in harmony. I am so proud to be a Sri Lankan. I love my motherland Sri Lanka a lot.

Naqeeb Shamroz (7 years) Zahira College, Colombo 10

My father My father’s name is Sampath. He is 35 years old. He has curly hair. He drops me to school. I love my father.

Pabalu Dikkumbura (6 years) Musaeus College

Myself My name is Thenulya. I am eight years old. I live in Maharagama. I study at Logos College. My favourite colour is pink. My best friend is Atara and I love to play with her. I have one sister and no brothers. My hobbies are drawing pictures and making models with clay. I love to eat chocolate cake and drink Milo. Out of all the countries I have visited, my favourite country is Dubai.

Thenulya Weerawardhana (8 years) Logos College

Ramazan Ramadhan is the month of fasting. Every Muslim of all ages takes part in the fast. Ramadan, the annual fast, falls in the ninth month of the Muslim calendar. Those who fast, must neither take food nor drink throughout the hours of daylight. Above all, they must keep away from things shameful, and telling lies.

Fasting can be a little difficult when it falls during summer. Though it will be a little difficult, a Muslim fasts joyfully in any season, obeying the orders of Allah. There are Muslims who love summertime fasting the most. There is a deep relationship between Ramadhan and the Holy Quran. Those who fast, turn again and again to the Holy Quran because Allah revealed it in the month of Ramadhan to our Holy Prophet Muhammed.

Shaifna Aroos (10 years) Ilma Int. Girls’ School

How could TV be better?

We all enjoy watching television. One of the main reasons which we watch television is to gain knowledge. Some knowledgeable channels are NatGeo, Discovery, NDTV Good times, NatGeo Geography etc. These channels are based on all about the world and types of people, natural disasters, ancient and historical places and many more.

There are also other useful as well as fun and interesting channels. For example, FoxLife is a channel which displays different types of food and recipes. They tell us about types of food eaten in various parts of the world. We as kids love watching animated programmes which can be found on Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon, Pogo and many more. We can watch cartoons such as Tom and Jerry which have a moral.

It teaches us not to fight and quarrel and instead to live in peace, friendship and harmony. News is one of the most important programmes that we must watch. We must make it a habit of watching at least one news episode a day as there are many news updates daily from early morning until midnight.

By watching these types of important programmes we can develop our brain and learn a lot about the world. We can also watch cartoon but not too much as it may affect our eyesight and brain.

Amal Gaffoor (11 years) Royal Institute Girls’ School

My best friend My best friend is Sandra. We both go to Kudapaduwa Sinhala Mixed School in Negombo. She is eleven years old. Her favourite food is grapes and her favourite colour is red. She has a pet dog. Her favourite subject is Science and she would like to be a teacher. Sandra likes to read English books. She has a very good heart. I love my best friend very much.

Anne Hansika (Grade 6) Kudapaduwa Sinhala M.S., Negombo

Importance of trees Trees are one of the most important things in the world. They give us shade. When we are going somewhere in the sun, when we are tired, we sit under a tree to rest. We choose a tree because it is shady. Trees give us food. We take fruits, vegetables, grains and green leaves from trees. We also eat roots like carrots, sweet potatoes, manioc and beetroot. Trees give us wood to make houses, buildings, furniture etc. The most important things is that they give us oxygen to breathe. Trees make our earth clean and beautiful. We must not cut trees. It takes only a few minutes to cut a tree but it takes years to grow.

Sanduni Jayathilake (Grade 7) Little Flower Convent, Bandarawela

The moon In the evening when the moon sets, The eyes of bats open wide. Children stop playing and go back home.

Shops are closed for the day, Darkness appears little by little And the night dominates.

Children go to sleep, At midnight thieves come to steal, But they cannot hide from the moon.

The sun rises and the children open their eyes Moon disappears and day begins.

Aysha Amani (Grade 5) Royal Int. School, Kegalle

An unforgettable trip We went on a trip to England for a few months. I had lots of fun while we were travelling. It was a great experience for us. We went there after two days. I was so excited. After we went there we had lots of fun playing tennis. Then at night we settled in a great five-star hotel. We had our dinner from that hotel. It was very delicious. Then in the morning we went to our uncle’s house. It was near the hotel. All of us went to Bits Park to play. We were very fortunate because it was winter season as well as snowy days. We made a snowman and played with snowballs. Then after a few days, my parents as well as my uncle entered me into a famous school in England. It is called ‘Richard Rose Morton Academy.’ It was a turning point in my life. I learned to speak English properly from my school. That’s why I respect my school. My life was changed from that day. I met a myriad of friends called Daisy, Molly and Kara. My sister and my brother also entered into a school. I have never seen snow before that day. We went to see a duck park. It was a fantastic park. That’s how I spent my trip. I can’t forget it forever.

Dilmi Nipuna (Grade 10) Tangalle B.V.

My hobby A hobby is nothing but to have a change in the routine work. It is a happy union of profit and pleasure. Hobby is also man’s past time. There are varieties of hobbies. My hobby is gardening.

I spend my leisure hours in my garden. My garden is in front of my house. I have prepared the flower beds and planted varieties of flowering plants. The plants give out a sweet scent in the evening. I love being in the garden and I watch the butterflies. I water the plants and enjoy the nature of the pure air in the evening. I water the plants twice a day during the summer. I dig out the withered plants and plant new ones.

I talk to the plants and sing to them. I feel as if my plants nod their heads in agreement. All plants are living things. My hobby gives me happiness and some exercise for my body. My hobby satisfies my inner urge and gets an emotional response.

S. Shimeshika (Grade 6) Tamil C.C., Bandarawela

My pet My pet is a dog. Its name is Blacky. It has four legs and a nice tail. It likes to eat meat. It likes to drink milk. My pet runs with me in the garden. My dog loves me and my mother. When I am going to school, he is looking at me. My brother loves my dog. He likes to jump. I have one small cat. When I am doing my homework it stays near me. I love my pet very much.

Julia (Std. 3) Jennings Int. College, Nainamadama

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The primary school students of gateway college staged their, cinnamon peelers.

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Essay on Sri Lanka

Students are often asked to write an essay on Sri Lanka in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Sri Lanka

Sri lanka: the pearl of the indian ocean.

Sri Lanka, also known as the Pearl of the Indian Ocean, is a beautiful island nation located south of India. It is a land of rich culture, history, and natural beauty.

Natural Beauty

Sri Lanka is blessed with stunning beaches, lush rainforests, and majestic mountains. The island is home to a diverse range of wildlife, including elephants, leopards, and blue whales.

Culture and History

Sri Lanka has a long and complex history, dating back to the arrival of the first settlers thousands of years ago. The island has been influenced by many different cultures over the centuries, including Indian, Chinese, and European. This diversity is reflected in Sri Lankan art, music, and dance.

People and Economy

Sri Lanka is home to a friendly and welcoming people. The island’s economy is based on tourism, agriculture, and manufacturing. Sri Lanka is a major producer of tea, rubber, and cinnamon.

250 Words Essay on Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka, a beautiful island nation located in the Indian Ocean, is often referred to as the “Pearl of the Indian Ocean”. It is a land of rich history, diverse culture, and stunning natural beauty.

History and Culture

Sri Lanka has a long and fascinating history, dating back to ancient times. It was once ruled by powerful kingdoms, and its culture is a blend of various influences, including Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, and Christianity.

Sri Lanka is blessed with stunning natural beauty, including lush green hills, cascading waterfalls, golden beaches, and diverse wildlife. The country is home to several national parks and wildlife sanctuaries, where visitors can see elephants, leopards, and other exotic animals.

Beaches and Water Sports

Sri Lanka’s coastline is dotted with beautiful beaches, making it a popular destination for beach lovers and water sports enthusiasts. Visitors can enjoy swimming, surfing, snorkeling, and diving in the crystal-clear waters.

Tea and Spices

Sri Lanka is famous for its tea and spices. The country produces some of the finest teas in the world, and visitors can visit tea plantations and learn about the tea-making process. Sri Lanka is also known for its aromatic spices, such as cinnamon, cardamom, and cloves.

500 Words Essay on Sri Lanka

Sri lanka: an enchanting island.

Sri Lanka, also known as Ceylon, is a beautiful island country located in the Indian Ocean, south of India. It is known for its diverse landscapes, rich history, and vibrant culture. The country boasts stunning beaches, lush rainforests, ancient ruins, and a fascinating blend of ethnicities and religions.

A Glimpse into Sri Lanka’s History

Sri Lanka has a long and storied history, dating back to over 2,500 years. The country has been influenced by various cultures, including the Sinhalese, Tamil, Portuguese, Dutch, and British. The ruins of ancient kingdoms and temples, such as Sigiriya and Polonnaruwa, offer a glimpse into the country’s rich past.

Mesmerizing Landscapes and Pristine Beaches

Cultural tapestry and vibrant festivals.

Sri Lanka is known for its diverse culture, which is a blend of Sinhalese, Tamil, Muslim, and Burgher influences. The country is home to many festivals and celebrations, including the Sinhala and Tamil New Year, Vesak Poya, and Deepavali. Traditional dances, music, and art forms reflect the rich cultural heritage of Sri Lanka.

Exploring Sri Lanka’s Natural Wonders

Sri Lanka is home to a diverse range of flora and fauna. The country’s national parks, such as Yala National Park and Udawalawe National Park, offer opportunities to spot elephants, leopards, sloth bears, and a variety of bird species. The island is also famous for its tea plantations, which produce some of the finest tea in the world.

A Culinary Journey

In conclusion, Sri Lanka is a captivating island nation that offers a wealth of experiences to visitors. From its ancient ruins and diverse landscapes to its vibrant culture and delicious cuisine, Sri Lanka is a perfect destination for those seeking a rich and memorable travel experience.

That’s it! I hope the essay helped you.

If you’re looking for more, here are essays on other interesting topics:

Happy studying!

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Home — Essay Samples — Geography & Travel — Tourism — Sri Lanka – the Best Place to Relax

Sri Lanka - The Best Place to Relax

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Published: Apr 30, 2020

Words: 892 | Pages: 2 | 5 min read

Mount Lavinia Hotel, Colombo

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මා කියවූ හොඳම ග්‍රන්ථය සිංහල රචනාව
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The story of Madol Duwa used to be wonderful. This Essay has 180 words. Total number of words to be = 150. Total Marks = 14. Sinhala essay :- Ma Sithgath Granthaya (My favorite book)- Grade 6. I enjoy reading different books. One of the most interesting books I've read is Madolduwa. Its author is Martin Wickremasinghe, better known as the ...
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මගේ ප්‍රියතම පොත ගැන ඉංග්‍රීසියෙන් රචනාවක් ලියමු
මගේ ප්‍රියතම පොත ගැන ඉංග්‍රීසියෙන් රචනාවක් ලියමු | My favorite book | essay writing |තවත් ඉංග් ...
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Top 10 Greatest Novels of Martin Wickramasinghe

මාර්ටින් වික්‍රමසිංහ සූරින්ගේ කෘතිි

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World » Asia » Sri Lanka

Return to Sri Lanka: Travels in a Paradoxical Land by Razeen Sally

The Sri Lanka Reader: History, Culture, Politics by John Clifford Holt

An Historical Relation of the Island Ceylon by Robert Knox

The Road to Peradeniya: An Autobiography by Ivor Jennings

When Memory Dies by A. Sivanandan

Running in the Family by Michael Ondaatje

1 The Sri Lanka Reader: History, Culture, Politics by John Clifford Holt

21 Books on Sri Lanka That’ll Spark Your Wanderlust

Table of Contents

2. This Divided Island: Life, Death, and the Sri Lankan Civil War

3. Elephant Complex: Travels in Sri Lanka

MORE BOOKS FOR THE ARMCHAIR TRAVELER:

5. The Seasons of Trouble: Life Amid the Ruins of Sri Lanka’s Civil War

6. The Teardrop Island: Following Victorian Footsteps Across Sri Lanka

By Sonali Deraniyagala (2013)

Looking for that perfect gift for friends or family?

9. Cinnamon Gardens

10. Funny Boy

11. Island of a Thousand Mirrors

More Books From Around the World:

13. Noontide Toll

14. On Sal Mal Lane

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16. The Road From Elephant Pass

17. The Tea Planter’s Wife

More Books to Read to Take You Around the World

19. The Village in the Jungle

20. What Lies Between Us

21. The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida

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Sri Lanka - The Best Place to Relax

Mount Lavinia Hotel, Colombo

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