We are especially interested in the following topics, but welcome a broad range of proposals: We invite submissions that investigate the “global mark” of Sri Lankan literature published both at home and abroad. During a postwar era that witnessed a surge of new forms of nativist and hypernationalist movements against the Muslim minority, the rise of an ethnocratic regime that exploited these divisions, and the Easter 2019 attacks targeting the Christian community that continue to remain unresolved, writers and artists have been experimenting with new modes of expression to render legible the assemblages of political, capitalist, and cultural forces at play.
While these issues continue to condition the lived experiences of present-day Sri Lankans both on the island and in the diaspora, they have become even more entangled in regional and global geopolitics. In 2012, South Asian Review published a special issue devoted to Sri Lankan Anglophone literature, specifically focusing on politics, human rights, the military conflict and its aftermath, and postcoloniality. The special issue of South Asian Review intervenes in this dialogue by focusing on the global implications and impact of contemporary Sri Lankan literature and culture.
Shehan Karunatilaka’s 2022 Booker Prize-winning novel The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida encapsulates the stakes of our time and the power of storytelling to hold the postcolonial state and its global allies accountable. Ganeshananthan, and SJ Sindu, has galvanized support towards rethinking issues faced by Sri Lanka in the postcolonial period by attending to rifts between the state and its subjects, official narratives and subaltern experiences, history and memories, and the perils and promises of dissent. Recent work by a new generation of writers with a local and global focus, including Anuk Arudpragasam, V.V. In particular, the citizen-led protest campaign against the backdrop of the country’s worst economic crisis that toppled the ruling Rajapaksa regime in 2022 (known as “Aragalaya”) has been globally celebrated at a time when democracy urgently demands a sustained engagement by the public. The multivalent historical, political, and cultural events of the last few years have drawn global attention to Sri Lanka. “Global Sri Lankan Literature and Culture” South Asian Review Special Issue on Sri Lanka
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