Terror and Reconciliation: Sri Lankan Anglophone Literature, 1983–2009 by Maryse Jayasuriya (review)

Abstract

Maryse Jayasuriya. Terror and Reconciliation: Sri Lankan Anglophone Literature, 1983-2009. Plymouth: Lexington, 2012. Pp. x, 183. $82.04 CDN. Maryse Jayasuriya's Terror and Reconciliation: Sri Lankan Anglophone Literature, 1983-2009, published relatively soon after Sri Lanka's separatist war ended in 2009, presents a deeply engaging account of twenty-seven-year conflict through literature of local and diasporic Sri Lankan writers. Stating that her study illustrates and examines capacity of literature respond what might seem be unimaginable circumstances, and imagine alternatives and a future beyond them (26), Jayasuriya synthesizes literary analysis, historical narrative, and political commentary with intent of exploring possibilities for reconciliation. In her introduction, Jayasuriya addresses production, reception, and possible impact of English creative writing in Sri Lanka, expressing her desire bring this literature to attention of Western academy but also attention of a Sri Lankan audience (17). implied international reader, she provides context, such as country's ethnic mix--which comprises seventy-four percent Sinhalese, eighteen percent Tamil, and eight percent Muslim--and its 1972 name change from Ceylon Sri Lanka, when Sinhalese was declared official language and Buddhism religion of state, predicating ethnic unrest mainly due language barrier for Tamils. (1) Moreover, Jayasuriya contextualizes literature through significant markers in history of ethnic conflict, such as riots of 1953, eruptions of violence in 1983 and 1988, intervention of Indian Peacekeeping Force (IPKF) in 1987 and their subsequent departure, intensified attacks and suicide bombings by Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), Norway ceasefire (2002-08), and final overthrow of LTTE in 2009. Jayasuriya states that sufferings of Sri Lankans have gone unnoticed by world due Sri Lanka being a small country and conflict not being on a major scale. Nevertheless, she mentions that the LTTE was proscribed as a terrorist organization by United States, United Kingdom, India, Canada, and most recently, European Union (15). (2) Since her book's publication, however, several events have drawn widespread attention Sri Lanka's politics. These include arrival of 449 Tamil migrants Canada in August 2010; Canadian Liberal Minister of Parliament Bob Rae flying Sri Lanka on a fact-finding mission in June 2009 and being turned back at Katunayake airport by Sri Lankan authorities; Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper boycotting 2013 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Colombo, Sri Lanka, followed by deliberations by other leaders; and a United Nations resolution in 2013 calling for an investigation into human rights violations by Sri Lankan government during last stages of conflict--conducted by UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay. For healing and reconciliation be possible, Jayasuriya writes, the wounds of all sides in conflict must be acknowledged (40). In chapter Mourning Terror: Memorials Conflict in Poetry and Film, she holds out hope that [t]he capacity of Sri Lankan Anglophone writing cut across ethnic lines has provided an important opportunity for Sri Lanka's ethnic communities mourn together (66). To that end, she reveals suffering and grief through poetry of local writers Jean Arasanayagam, Kamala Wijeratne, Anne Ranasinghe, Sivamohan Sumathy, Vivimarie Vanderpoorten, and Richard de Zoysa as well as short fiction of Neil Fernandopulle, Nihal de Silva, and Arasanayagam. Jayasuriya asks, Is there any healing possible for a people so inured--and perhaps so immune violence? (54). In her exploration of numerous works that communicate effects of trauma, she calls attention those that convey guilt, not only of perpetrators of violence, but also of silent and passive bystanders who look on, paralyzed by an internalized helplessness or fear of reprisal if they intervene. …