Stanfords Adult Book of the Month August 2016 Sri Lanka is a small island with a long, violent & enthralling history. Home to thousands of wild elephants, this is a place where natural beauty has endured, indifferent to human tragedy. Journeying through its regions
- some haunted by war, many rarely seen by our eyes
- award-winning travel writer John Gimlette interviews ex-presidents & cricketers, tea planters & terrorists, negotiating the complex relationships of diverse communities & the more sinister forms of tourism. Each city raises the ghosts of Portuguese, Dutch or British colonies; each site resurrects a civilization that preceded, & sometimes, outfaced them. The political families of Colombo lead Gimlette through years of turmoil, survivors of the tsunami tell of their recovery & the thorny truths of the civil war emerge
- a war whose wounds have yet to heal. As he walks in the steps of old conquerors, follows the secret paths of elephants & marches alongside pilgrims, Gimlette seeks the soul of a country that is striving to free itself from trauma & embody an identity to match its vitality, its power & its people.