
The Sri Lanka Reader is a sweeping introduction to the epic history of the island nation located just off the southern tip of India. The island`s recorded history of more than two & a half millennia encompasses waves of immigration from the South Asian subcontinent; the formation of Sinhala Buddhist & Tamil Hindu civilizations; the arrival of Arab Muslim traders; & European colonization by the Portuguese, & then the Dutch, & finally the British. Selected texts depict perceptions of the country`s multiple linguistic & religious communities, as well as its political travails after independence in 1948, especially the ethnic violence that recurred from the 1950s until 2009, when the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam were defeated by the Sri Lankan government`s armed forces. This wide-ranging anthology covers the aboriginal Veddhas, the earliest known inhabitants of the island; the Kings of Kandy, Sri Lanka`s last indigenous dynasty; twenty-first-century women who leave the island to work as housemaids in the Middle East; the 40, 000 Sri Lankans killed by the tsunami in December 2004, &, through cutting-edge journalism & heart-wrenching poetry, the protracted violence that has scarred the country`s contemporary political history. Along with fifty-four images of paintings, sculptures, & architecture, The Sri Lanka Reader
Includes:: more than ninety classic & contemporary texts written by Sri Lankans & foreigners.