After the brutal ending to a nearly three decades of civil war in 2009 between the Tamil minorities in the North and the Sri Lankan state, the South Asian island has ushered in a new era of postcolonial nation building. Unlike other post-conflict societies where the end of conflicts is euphemistically marked by peace treaties or truth commissions, there has been no institutionalized setup to address the crimes committed during the last phases of the military offenses against the Tamil insurgents in 2009. Despite the lack of these institutional responses, or precisely for this reason, Sri Lanka has witnessed a prolific output of Anglophone literature in the form of novels, reportages, and works of life writing since the end of the conflict. This seminar introduces the literary as well as cultural discourses surrounding post-war Sri Lanka through three novels.
- Trainer/in: Pavan Malreddy