With its fascinating history and recent political tumult, Sri Lanka has inspired many authors of fiction, non-fiction and various specialist areas ranging from architecture to bird-watching. The below list suggests the best background reading to discover more about this diverse and dramatic country. There is a small but strong Sinhala-language film industry producing films for local cinemas (Sulanga Enu Pinisa and Purahanda Kaluwara are two of the best known), but some more-internationally famed movies have taken advantage of the country’s lush scenery and been shot here too.
Sri Lankan author Michael Ondaatje
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Books
Fiction
Colpetty People Ashok Ferrey. Entertaining vignettes, full of comedy and social insights, by one of Sri Lanka’s leading short story writers.
Funny Boy Shyam Selvadurai. Touching novel chronicling the life of a young Tamil boy growing up in Colombo in the years leading up to the civil war.
The Hamilton Case Michelle de Kretser. Cleverly plotted and beautifully written whodunnit set in the British colonial era and chronicling the life and career of lawyer Sam Obeysekere and his chance involvement in the murder of a British planter.
The Jam Fruit Tree trilogy Carl Muller. This popular trilogy of novels (The Jam Fruit Tree, Yakada Yaka and Once Upon A Tender Time) describes the comic misadventures of the slow-witted Von Bloss family, lower-class railway Burghers living in Colombo and Kandy.
Reef Romesh Gunesekera. Shortlisted for the Booker Prize, this strangely captivating novel describes the relationship between Sri Lankan marine biologist Mister Salgado and his young house-boy cook Triton, giving a distinctive flavour of the island’s cooking and history.
Running in the Family Michael Ondaatje. This superbly written memoir describes the maverick lives, loves and extended bouts of drunkeness of Ondaajte’s Sri Lankan Burgher relatives, beautifully capturing the eccentric flavour of a vanished era. Ondaatje’s other Sri Lankan book, the novel Anil’s Ghost, is altogether darker, offering a lightly fictionalised account of the island during the civil war and JVP insurrection.
The Village in the Jungle Leonard Woolf. Superbly depressing tale of life in the backwaters of southern Sri Lanka – a place Woolf knew intimately from his work as a colonial administrator in Hambantota.
History and travel
Colombo Carl Muller. Readable, lightly fictionalised look into the history and dark underbelly of the nation’s capital city – and perhaps explaining why Muller himself chooses to live in Kandy.
A History of Sri Lanka K.M. de Silva. The best history of Sri Lanka, presenting an intelligent overview of the island’s political and cultural history.
Only Man Is Vile William McGowan. Superbly insightful and disquieting account of war-torn Sri Lanka in the late 1980s during its twin struggles against the Tamil Tigers and JVP.
Reaping the Whirlwind K.M. de Silva. Classic account of the political background and ethnic conflict underpinning the island’s long-running civil war.
Tea Time with Terrorists: A Motorcycle Journey into the Heart of Sri Lanka’s Civil War Mark Stephen Meadows. Insightful account of a journey through the war zones of northern Sri Lanka and the various characters encountered en route.
A Year in Green Tea and Tuk-tuks Rory Spowers. Entertaining and thought-provoking account of a British environmentalist’s attempts to create a sustainable eco-farm in the hills above Galle.
Art and architecture
The Architecture of an Island Barbara Sansoni, Ronald Lewcock and Laki Senanayake. Beautiful line drawings and descriptions of 95 classic Sri Lankan structures, from chicken coops to colonial cathedrals.
Geoffrey Bawa: The Complete Works David Robson. Sumptuous volume covering the work of Sri Lanka’s foremost modern architect, with insightful text and superb photography.
Specialist guides
A Field Guide to the Birds of Sri Lanka John Harrison and Tim Worfolk. The definitive field handbook to the island’s immense ornithological riches.
A Photographic Guide to the Birds of Sri Lanka Gehan de Silva Wijeyeratne et al. Excellent little pocket guide with good photographs of all Sri Lankan bird species along with useful accompanying notes.
Alec Guinness in ‘The Bridge on the River Kwai’
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Film
The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957). Classic war film depicting the construction of the Burma Railway in 1942–43 and starring William Holden and Alec Guinness, which was filmed in what was then Ceylon. The bridge in the film was located near Kitulgala.
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984). This second in the blockbusting franchise was partly shot on location around Kandy, after the Indian authorities refused permission to Steven Spielberg and co on the grounds of finding the material offensive to India and Hinduism.
A Common Man (2013). Sir Ben Kingsley stars in this remake of an Indian film about an anonymous man planting bombs throughout Colombo and using this threat as leverage to have four notorious terrorists released from prison.