Novels - නවකතා

අපේ ගම – Ape Gama
Translated by Laksmi De Silva

Lay Bare The Roots Is not Simply a record of childhood impressions. There is a Continual exposure of Causes, whether of the growing up of the child, or of change in the village. At times the questing eye falls briefly on the sources of impulse and habit, tracing them back to the beginnings of life itself. The ultimate value of the book perhaps, is in the insight into the process of growth which it proffers through the balance between recollection and reflection, the contrast and connection revealed between the boy passionately involved in his experience and the tolerant irony of the man.

කලියුගය – Kaliyugaya The Age of Kali
Translated by Ranga Wickramasinghe & Aditha Dissanayake

Kaliyugaya is the second Part of Martin Wickramasinghe’s Uprooted trilogy consisting of Gamperaliya, Kaliyugaya and Yuganthaya.

‘The Story in Kali Yuganthaya is built round the disharmony, the loss of sympathy , and the loosening of ties among three generations, the generation in the village – Nanda’s mother, Piyal’s mother, and those like tissa and Anula – who at heart are part of the village; the next generation – Nanda and Piyal – who, born and the village, have broken with it and come to the city; and Finally their children, born in the city and directed away from the village. The novel has a neat formal structure which bespeaks an easy and natural skill in the craft of fiction There are three centres of action in the novel which represent the three centres of values, the three interacting worlds. There is the old village of koggala with its dilapidated ancestral home; the “Maha Gedara”, symbolic of the neglected past; there is the modern home in Mutwal with its well equipped comfort. Its hybrid sophisticated life;and across the sea,which it faces, lies England from where Alan writes,And where Alan goes as though he is driven to seek reality ,the living source from which his parents derived their pale and awkward imitations.’

-Godfrey Gunathilake