Writing Sri Lanka, Reading Resistance: Shyam Selvadurai’s Funny Boy and A. Sivanandan’s When Memory Dies

Dennis Austin’s observation takes us to the major problem confronting the critic of contemporary Sri Lankan literature: the problem of negotiating the relationship between historical events, historiography and literary fiction. The critical reception of literature from Sri Lanka is shaped in large measure by the country’s recent political history. After twenty years of sustained ethnic violence on an unprecedented scale, the erosion of traditional social and cultural ties, and the collapse of the economy, which has widened class divisions further (2001 was the first time in fifty years that the Sri Lankan economy shrank), Sri Lankan literature in English is increasingly read in terms of its relationship to the country’s ethnic conflict and the ability to narrate history as it is being made. Of course contemporary Sri Lankan writing, drawing as it does on recent history, does lend itself to such readings, but this symbiotic relationship of reception and production can result in an exclusive evaluation of literature in terms of its ability to ‘‘accurately’’ reflect the past – regardless of the fact that the past has been the subject of open contestation and blatant manipulation by the clergy, Sri Lankan governments and their opponents over the years. Furthermore, there is an implicit demand for the writer to take on the role of cultural spokesman, social commentator and national prophet. Writing in 1992,