Midweek Review

Eugenio Barba’s Living Archive & Floating Islands

Published

3 years ago

2023/06/28

Rehearsing "Anastasis" (resurrection) May 2023 Eugenio Barba & Odin Teatret INSTAGRAM: odinteatret2Photo: Stefano Di Buduo

“A living memory is a living library, a living museum: a place of metamorphosis.The past as proof of the impossible that has become possible.” Eugenio Barba

During the Aragalaya in 2022, seeing (online), the vibrantly theatrical protest march led by artistes and also several cultural events and performative acts staged at Galle Face and elsewhere (which I wrote about in a previous essay for The Island), I felt that Barba’s life-long work in theatre, in several continents and his important scholarship would be of some interest and relevance to theatre folk in Lanka too. I don’t know if some of his work is already been taught at any University, so this is simply a short introduction to his multi-faceted visionary work.

by Laleen Jayamanne

Eugenio Barba is considered the last in the great lineage of European theatrical theorists and directors, beginning with Constantine Stanislavsky of Russia, in the early 20th Century. There is a scholarly series of books documenting the history of their unique and highly influential contributions to world theatre, simply named after each director—all male, naturally! They include names such as Meyerhold, Brecht, Artaud, Copeau and the final volume is titled (Peter) Brooks, Grotowsky, Barba. Their profoundly impassioned experiments in theatre and theatrical thought have now spread through the various currents of the oceans, into all five continents.

In fact, Barba’s most recent book co-written with his long-term collaborator, theatre historian, Nicola Savarese, is called The Five Continents of Theatre: Facts and Legends about the Material Culture of the Actor, a pictorial history of theatre of the globe from ancient times to the present. There, they imagine with Shakespeare, that ‘All the world’s a stage …’; all the players dazzling beacons illuminating the enfolding darkness for a mere instant, leaving us with traces of unforgettable intensity. I do hope this volume might become a reference book for all Lankans studying and doing theatre at a University. I wish I’d had it instead of the bone-dry ones we had to study at New York University. It is beautifully produced by Brill and written in a very engaging style, easy to read because of the hundreds of carefully selected, rare images and because the two scholars have fun giving themselves fictional names of characters from Flaubert’s novel, Bouvard and Pecuchet (who were overwhelmed by the mountains of books they had to read), to discuss theatre history in dialogic form. Like me, you might also linger on a favourite image or two and keep returning to them many times. In paperback, it weighs over one kilo!

Islands don’t float, they are as grounded as subcontinents and continents. What then are Floating Islands? Eugenio Barba coined the name to describe and validate the plethora of ‘nameless theatre groups’ of our world. In doing so he has become a spokesperson and the visionary advocate for some of the poorest and marginal of theatre folk, especially in Latin America who, undaunted by poverty and myriad other difficulties, find it necessary to do theatre and stay together in a group to do so. Earlier on he has referred to these as ‘Group Theatres’ and also ‘Third Theatre’. I’ll come back to the name as it has an interesting global political history. But more recently he coined the poetic phrase ‘Floating Islands,’ creating a fabulous (fable-like) image to pay tribute to their tenacity of spirit, aesthetic will, sense of self-determination and fierce autonomy.

We usually don’t think of archives as being alive, but ‘Living Archive’ is the name chosen for the historical archive of Eugenio Barba and his Odin Teatret, Denmark, newly housed in the Bibliotecca Musiale, Lecce, in the Puglia region, Southern Italy, his birthplace. It is due to open by 2024 with dynamic exhibitions and installations presenting Odin’s theatrical activities over sixty years. The costumes, masks, props, sets, posters and stuff will be presented in contemporary audio-visual, interactive displays, and Barba’s collection of 5,000 books, in the many languages he has mastered, will be accessible to scholars of theatre from across the world. He has himself written many books and a vast number of scholarly articles. In short, it promises to be a major cultural centre for innovative ways of studying theatre and imagining its future in the 21st Century, without necessarily having to have a University degree as an entry ticket.

It’s this sense of dynamism that is captured by the title, ‘Living Archive.’ I hope young Lankan theatre folk will also have an opportunity to visit this visionary institution over the 21st Century or at the very least read his books and follow his lectures, workshops and interviews, now luckily accessible online.

Barba has had a long-standing, deep, ongoing engagement with the classical Indian dance-theatre forms and theories and with some of the living masters in Asia more widely, which I will discuss later, this being one of the main reasons I wanted to write this piece.

Eugenio Barba

During the Aragalaya in 2022, seeing (online), the vibrantly theatrical protest march led by artists and also several cultural events and performative acts staged at Galle Face and elsewhere (which I wrote about in a previous essay for The Island), I felt that Barba’s life-long work in theatre, in several continents and his important scholarship would be of some interest and relevance to theatre folk in Lanka too. I don’t know if some of his work is already been taught at any University, so this is simply a short introduction to his multi-faceted visionary work.

And by the way, it was he who edited and published the theatrical scholarly best seller, Grotowsky’s Towards a Poor Theatre, in his publishing house at Odin theatre in Denmark in the late 60s. I remember to this day the moment I saw this book (with its striking cover image of the Holy Actor), displayed on the open stand for new acquisitions, at the Peradeniya University Library. I read the book soon after in one gulp and was amazed at the photographs of the theatre space and minimalist props, the cultivation of a poverty of means (just a highly trained ascetic actor, an arrangement of an intimate space with benches and some lights). Barba’s scholarly contribution to theatre history has earned him 12 honorary Ph.D.s from universities, European and other. He has said that he is an auto-didact, self-taught, reading very widely, which feeds into his inter-disciplinary theatrical work.

Brief Biography

Barba, born in 1936 in Southern Italy to a middle-class family, has recently celebrated his 86th year. His father who joined Mussolini’s fascist army died when he was young. But because of this army connection he was educated in a high school for children of army personnel. He speaks of the rigorous, severe discipline he experienced there. At 18, perhaps wanting to leave this burdensome paternal legacy behind, he went to Norway, where without any knowledge of Norwegian, he made his way by working as a welder, grateful for the work ethic he learned there doing manual work. He learnt the language by taking evening classes and spending time in the library reading. It appears that he never forgot this link between the skilled manual hand and thought, when he made theatre. Even watching his performances on a computer, I feel a strong tactile connection with the images and sounds Barba creates. This is because of their synaesthetic Rasa-bara richness, our five senses are drawn in to play together in relays.

Having read Romain Rolland’s book on Ramakrishna’s life, an important figure in the Bengali Renaissance, he worked as a sailor on a merchant ship, mostly in the boiler room, so as to get to Calcutta in 1956 at the age of 20. He says that as a Southern Italian with dark skin he faced racism both in Norway and especially on the ship. He visited the Ramakrishna ashram in Calcutta, his trip creating an abiding link with India. On returning to Norway, he entered University to study Norwegian and French literature and Comparative Religion, focusing on forms of mysticism, including those in Islam. He was also interested in Nagarjuna’s Buddhist thought and in altered states of consciousness in various religious practices. He appears to fold these ideas into his actor training and creation of theatre.

Apprenticeship with Grotowski, 1961-1963

On graduation, he received a scholarship to study theatre in Warsaw, Poland, in 1960. After one year at the theatre school he dropped out to join the then unknown Jerzy Grotowski’s small theatre laboratory in Opolo, and worked as his apprentice from 1961-1963. This was to be his most decisive initiation into a life in theatre as a way of life. He considered Grotowski (who was only three years his senior), his guru and felt so to the end. During these three years he also undertook what feel more like pilgrimages (than trips) to witness two profound theatre experiences.

Crying at the Berliner Ensemble

One of his Polish mentors (who had designed Brecht’s poster for Galileo), gave him a letter of introduction to Helena Weigel at the Berliner ensemble, in East Berlin, now under Soviet rule, where she was performing in The Mother, based on a Russian play by Gorky. Brecht was dead by then and Barba, who was deeply immersed in his theories of Epic Theatre and of its social and political functions, was profoundly disturbed to find himself crying at the end of the play, at the Berliner Ensemble. This happened when, at the end of all her trials and tribulations, the mother waves a little red flag.

So, what made Barba cry at the Berliner Ensemble, despite all Brecht’s warnings about the danger of being swayed by emotions in the theatre and despite himself? Barba doesn’t tell us, so we don’t know, but can imagine. We don’t always know why we are moved to tears. It remains an ambiguous sign, far more than, say, laughter. Do some animals cry? Barba was profoundly aware of the new politics of the Cold War having been in Poland. So, when he had to go through the flourishing consumer capitalist neon lit paradise of West Berlin (under the largesse of the US Marshall plan), in order to get to the impoverished East Belin under Soviet style bureaucratic control, the contrasts, the contradictions, were immediately felt. He says he felt nauseous seeing the luxury in West Berlin, having come from a grim postwar Poland where the rubble was still being cleared, with shortages and food queues. Barba crossed the recently erected wall to enter East Berlin in 1961.

“Theatre as A Politics by Other Means” (Barba)

This trip to see Brecht’s play was a compressed journey through mid-century European history (in which he and his family were enmeshed), and a dramatic experience of the new bi-polar world. This, I believe must have fed into Barba’s cathartic experience within Brecht’s revolutionary theatre, in a totalitarian state after Stalin’s death. He says the Brechtian theory he fervently believed in became irrelevant. What mattered was to be able to stay with that impulse to cry and work through the sense of bewilderment and disorientation he experienced, so as to figure out a path to do theatre without preconceptions. Barba has made a virtue of uncertainty and disorientation, so as to break with theatrical and other habits, cliches.

Barba’s mature thought, about audience reception of energy and impulses from the actor, are significantly different in form, focus and intent from Brecht’s Epic constructs, though the latter has said that a theatre which failed to entertain would be a failed one. However, what Brecht didn’t want was an audience punch drunk on sentiment alone.

But Brecht didn’t make a fetish of ‘Reason’ either, given its violently instrumental, spectacular expression in Nazism. Certainly, what Barba experienced was his guru Brecht’s gift to him, beyond the grave, with the great epic actor, Helene Weigel (also Brecht’s ever loyal wife), as its vital conduit. Great gurus do not make clones, rather, they propel disciples to diverge and strike a new path. The tears were a gift!

Kathakali in Kerala, 1963

In 1963, while at Grotowski’s theatre, he went to India for a second time, to the Kathakali Kalamandalam to see the dance form. He watched an all-night performance and observed the relaxed state of the audience, eating, talking, falling asleep, and their appreciation and keen attention at some moments. But above all, he was taken by the rigorous discipline the young boys had to submit to in their training, to become Kathakali dancers much later in life. Their daily 4 am waking up schedule, their intricate exercise routines all day and the monastic discipline left a lasting impression on Barba and will help determine his own rigorous approach to actor training later.

It is indeed strange that a Lankan like me studied Kathakali dance-theatre with a drily-erudite Indian scholar, at New York University, when Kerala was just a short flight from Colombo, where I had lived for 23 years! A. J. Gunawardena, a Professor of English, edited an excellent special double Issue of The Drama Review (TDR) on Asian Theatre, also at New York University, which had an article on Kathakali as well. It’s the case that some Lankans have to go to the ‘west’ to discover India. Though the most gifted and cluey of Lankan artists of earlier generations knew better and had studied at Tagore’s Shantiniketan (Vishava Bharathi, Universal India!) and therefore have contributed to a Pan-Asian and cosmopolitan awareness in Lanka, countering the parochial Sinhala Buddhist nationalist ideology of the post-colonial era. Names like Manjusri, Harry Pieris, Bellanvila Siththara, Sunil Santha, and later Sarachchandra, come to mind. I wish someone would compile a full list of Lankan students of Shantiniketan.

(To be continued)

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Midweek Review

Legacy of enforced disappearances: Vital facts conveniently forgotten to whitewash LTTE and India

Published

1 day ago

2026/09/9

Sahan Weerasooriya

One-time child soldier Jesuthasan Antonythasan poses with actresses Claudine Vinasithamby and Kalieaswari Srinivasan during a photocall for the film "Dheepan" at the 68th Cannes Film Festival in Cannes. The movie won the Palme d'Or in 2015. Antonythasan fought for the LTTE terrorist group before fleeing Sri Lanka and reached France in 1993. Of those categorised as missing, perhaps he is the most famous.

Those demanding accountability from Sri Lanka for war crimes allegations are strangely silent on atrocities committed by the LTTE. On the orders of its leader Velupillai Prabhakaran, the LTTE killed hundreds of members belonging to rival terrorist groups. It assassinated President Ranasinghe Premadsasa, almost succeeded in assassinating President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga and made attempts on President Mahinda Rajapaksa. But, the indiscriminate use of children as cannon fodder went unnoticed. How many children, forcibly recruited into their ranks, perished in fighting? And, lastly, shouldn’t the Tamil community hold the Illankai Thamil Arasu Kadchi (ITAK)-led now defunct Tamil National Alliance, that recognised the LTTE in 2001 as the sole representative of the Tamil speaking people, responsible for death and destruction caused since 2001?

By Shamindra Ferdinando

Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances (WGEID) representative Ana Lorena Delgadillo Pérez, and head of the Association of Relatives of Enforced Disappearances (ARED) Yogarasa Kanagaranjini, on 30 August, opened an exhibition at the Thanthai Selva Auditorium in Jaffna. The exhibition, appropriately named ‘Long Road for Justice,’ coincided with the International Day for Victims of Enforced Disappearances.

Pérez later addressed a conference held therein where the responsibility on the part of Sri Lanka was stressed.

Civil society activist Sunanda Deshapriya, in an article titled ‘Sri Lanka’s Disappeared: Where Do We Go from Here?’ carried in Jaffna Monitor, dealt with missing persons issue. Deshapriya focused on the North-East war (https://www.jaffnamonitor.com/sri-lankas-disappeared-where-do-we-go-from-here/)

The ICRC, Colombo, issued a statement regarding the International Day of the Disappeared. When the writer sought the number of missing persons in the country, Ruwanthi Jayasundare, Head of Communications, said that they had a caseload of 15,000 registered tracing requests (1983-2009) but she asserted that the actual number of missing was far bigger (https://island.lk/icrs-sustained-and-collective-efforts-critical-to-address-issue-of-missing-persons/)

Perhaps, many people wouldn’t know that the ICRC arrived here in 1989 during the second Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) terror campaign in the wake of Indian military intervention here. The much discussed issue of disappearances must be appropriately dealt with, taking into consideration the relevant factors. At the time of their deployment here, President Ranasinghe Premadasa had been engaged in direct talks with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the Geneva-headquartered body never expected a gruesome outbreak of violence. It would be pertinent to mention that within weeks after the ICRC’s arrival here, the JVP was crushed with brute force as it, too, resorted to senseless violence. The counter violence unleashed by the state apparatus was such that the then Marxist group’s top leadership was killed, except for Somawansa Amarasinghe, who escaped, with Indian help, in February 1990, and remained in exile till late 2001.

The ICRC deployment took place in mid October, 1989, and JVP leader Rohana Wijeweera was captured in the second week of November, at Ulapone, and shot in custody, and was allegedly cremated alive at the Borella cemetery.

In fact, at the time the ICRC arrived here, the JVP was on its last legs. The UNP government never bothered to hand over the bodies of slain JVP cadres to their families. Those who had been listed missing at that time were no longer in the land of the living, by the time the ICRC brought its operation in the South to an end.

What the country never expected was a fresh flare-up in the northern and eastern regions. The LTTE resumed large-scale hostilities, in June, after the Indian Army pulled out from Sri Lanka in late March 1990. Interestingly, some of those demanding justice for the missing/disappeared are conveniently silent about the disappearances during the Indian Army deployment here (July 1987 to March 1990).

Soon after hostilities erupted in the northern and eastern regions, following a 14-month truce between President Ranasinghe Premadasa and LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran (May 1989 to June 1990), the ICRC was invited to open offices in that region. There had been excesses on the part of the military and law enforcement authorities as the government battled the LTTE, the world’s most ruthless terrorist organisation as assessed by none other than the US Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Yet Sri Lanka must earnestly address accountability issues and take meaningful measures to compensate the families of the innocents.

However, the Tamil community must come to terms with the reality that the vast majority of dead were members of the LTTE. The LTTE enjoyed considerable firepower as it literally wielded a conventional fighting capability, which even included a fledgling air force and directly challenged the government, and the armed forces had no option but to fight back. Obviously, the LTTE, that achieved significant battlefield successes over the years, never expected the almost non-stop three-year-long offensive that brought the war to an end in May 2009. Disappearances became exceptionally an important issue in the overall agenda pursued by the Tamil Diaspora and Tamil speaking political parties here only after the LTTE’s eradication.

Multiple reasons

In September 1990, several months after the Indian Army was literally forced to pull out from Sri Lanka as Tigers fought back the mighty IPKF to a standstill, while President Premadasa, too, made it clear that they were no longer welcome here, Amnesty International (AI) documented 43 cases of disappearances. According to the London headquartered AI, the majority of these disappearances happened in the Jaffna peninsula, following the outbreak of fighting in October 1989. The Indian Army launched ‘Operation Pawan’ meant to disarm the LTTE in line with the Indo-Lanka Accord, signed on 29 July, 1987.

During the Indian Army deployment here (1987 July to 1990 March), the Sri Lankan armed forces were confined to their barracks in the North and East. The AI accused the Indian Army of torture, extrajudicial executions and disappearances. The deaths of nearly 1,500 Indian officers and men, and injuries to approximately 3,000 others during the Indian deployment here, underscored the ferocity of the situation.

The Indian Army carried out reprisals, following LTTE attacks in both provinces. The Indian Army was also accused of sexual violence. Perhaps, the August 1989 Valvettithurai orgy of violence, during which Indian soldiers killed civilians, tortured detainees, committed sexual violence, and systematically destroyed homes and businesses, while the town was under curfew, was the worst case.

In October, 2025, the International Truth and Justice Project (ITJP) presented a detailed reparations claim, in association with the Valvettithurai Citizens’ Committee, to the Sri Lankan Office for Reparations, requesting USD $15 million (LKR 4.5 billion) for victims of a 1989 orgy of violence committed by the IPKF where at least 66 civilians were killed and 34 injured.

There hadn’t been a previous instance of a comprehensive compensation claim for such a wartime crime. Thousands of LTTE cadres, some of them trained in India, and civilians, perished in Indian Army action. The Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) earned such a bad reputation it came to be dubbed the Indian People Killing Force.

The war in Sri Lanka, or whatever one chooses to call it, should be examined in the context of a high profile Indian destabilisation project ordered by Premier Indira Gandhi. Over a year after the Indian Army pullout, the LTTE assassinated Rajiv Gandhi, by then out of power, but he was the person Velupillai Prabhakaran held responsible for the Indian Army deployment in Sri Lanka. Following Gandhi’s assassination, India hunted down the LTTE team, involved in the operation, carried out by a female suicide cadre.

The LTTE forgot the Indian role in the transformation of the Tamil separatist terrorist movement to a deadly conventional threat. If not for the despicable Indian action, Sri Lanka wouldn’t have been hauled up before the Geneva-based United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC). That is the unpalatable truth.

How many Sri Lankan Tamils disappeared during weapons training in India? Did India investigate such disappearances as well as deaths caused by fighting among rival Tamil terrorist groups operating in India at that time? Among the groups that had been armed by India were PLOTE (People’s Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam), EPRLF (Eelam People’s Revolutionary Liberation Front) and TELO (Tamil Eelam Liberation Organisation) responsible for quite a significant number of killings and human rights violations.

India never accepted responsibility for the PLOTE raid on the Maldives on a contract to topple the then Maldivian PM Gayoom’s government given by a domestic rival in early November, 1988. Shouldn’t New Delhi at least apologise for the sea borne raid on the Maldives that resulted in deaths of Maldivians, as well as raiders? The Indian Navy sank a ship commandeered by the attackers fleeing the Maldives after air borne Indian troops brought the situation under control.

The Indian and global media praised swift Indian intervention but ignored two key factors, namely (i) the operation targeting Maldivian President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom was mounted by one of the groups trained, armed and deployed by India and (ii) two trawlers carrying the raiding party left the northern part of Sri Lanka, at that time held by the Indian Army.

The writer had the opportunity, in November, 2011, to interview the Maldivian businessman, Abdullah Luthufee, who convinced the PLOTE leader Uma Maheswaran to carry out the operation. (Male plot leader speaks out 3 November, 2011, Rajiv saved us from Gayoom-Male coup leader 4 November 2011 and How Luthufee moved SAARC venue from Male to Addu 11 Nov 2011) dealt with the operation that should have drawn international attention to the Indian destabilisation project. Let me stress that some PLOTE cadres perished when the Indian Navy sank the vessel commandeered by the fleeing PLOTE cadres. They were among those who had been listed missing during the conflict.

Australian and US interventions

One-time top JVPer Kumar Gunaratnam secret arrival in Sri Lanka as an Australian Citizen Noel Mudalige, in early September, 2011, emphasised the issuance of foreign passports in assumed names to Sri Lankans under controversial circumstances. The writer exclusively reported how the head of the breakaway JVP faction, known as the Frontline Socialist Party (FSP), arrived here. The Australian High Commission in Sri Lanka acted swiftly and decisively when Gunaratnam disappeared after entering the country, using Australian passport bearing number N 1016123 on September 4, 2011 (https://dbsjeyaraj.com/dbsj/?p=43914). The writer dealt with the same issue again in August 2016 (https://dbsjeyaraj.com/dbsj/?p=47936).

Among thousands of Sri Lankans, now having foreign citizenship, there can be many people listed here as “missing/forcibly” disappeared. Western governments never helped Sri Lanka to establish the real identities of Sri Lankans living abroad, under assumed names. If Gunaratnam never acted in a manner inimical to the JVP, he could have easily lived a comfortable life in Australia as Sinhala Buddhist Noel Mudalige.

There had been many interesting stories of those categorised as missing/dead turning up in the West, under new identities. One of the most intriguing ones, is about an ex-LTTE terrorist turned Frenchman Antonythasan Jesuthasan, the lead actor in Dheepen that won the prestigious Palme d’Or at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival.

Internationally acclaimed Jacques Audiard directed the movie about three Sri Lankans who formed a fake family to escape the war and to secure asylum in France. Antonythasan Jesuthasan’s performance in Dheepan earned him a Best Actor nomination at the 2016 César Awards (the French equivalent of the Oscars). Jesuthasan is the only ex-LTTE terrorist to receive international acclaim as an actor.

In an interview with Tom Seymour (Dheepan’s Antonythasan Jesuthasan: from Tamil Tiger to star of a Palme d’Or winner in The Guardian) posted online on March 31, 2016, transformed Frenchman Jesuthasan, unwittingly revealed how he deceived the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to secure political asylum. Seymour reported that Jesuthasan, after having shown him a dense lattice of scars on his forearm, declared: “I did those to myself. I was 22, and I had spent years trying to come to the west. I wanted to get a fake French passport, but I had to be accepted as a refugee. I went to the UNHCR [the UN High Commissioner for Refugees], but they wouldn’t believe my story. So I cut myself, and held up my arm, and said to them: ‘Look at my blood. This is my word.”

Jesuthasan is just one among thousands who obtained political asylum on false claims. Jesuthasan ended up as the star of Dheepan, directed by Jacques Audiard, possibly France’s most celebrated modern director. There cannot be a better example than Jesuthasan to highlight the web of deceit pertaining to the vast majority of those who successfully secured political asylum. But, the Sri Lanka Foreign Ministry never bothered to set the record straight. Born in Allaipiddy, on the Velanaitivu islet, Jesuthasan claimed he fought the Sri Lanka Army in August 1990 and subsequently fled the country and managed to reach France.

But, the case of Kathiravel Thayapararajah is one of the most controversial cases. Thayapararajah had been involved in a Tamil Diaspora funded project in Kilinochchi during Eelam war IV. He couldn’t have secured the Diaspora assignment without the approval of the LTTE and remained in the Vanni during the war. He disappeared in September 2009.

His disappearance prompted a section of the media, as well as some international NGOs, to accuse the Directorate of Military Intelligence (DMI) of executing him. No less a person than the then US Assistant Secretary of State for South Asian Affairs and one-time US Ambassador in Colombo, Robert O. Blake, inquired about the missing person.

The University Teachers for Human Rights (Jaffna), the Australian Government Refugee Review Tribunal, Tamilnet and the European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights among others blamed the Sri Lankan intelligence for the disappearance. However, the Indian media, in May, 2014, revealed Thayapararajah’s arrest though they didn’t know at the time that he was the person who was supposed to have been killed by the Sri Lankan Intelligence. At the time Indian police apprehended Thayapararajah, at Arichamunai off Dhanuskodi, after arriving there in a boat from Sri Lanka, he had been with notorious female human smuggler Uthayakala. She claimed Thayapararajah was her second husband.

That chance detection exposed a blatant lie propagated over the years. The then Head of Missing Persons Commission, retired High Court Judge Maxwell Paranagama, is also on record as having called for international cooperation to trace persons living overseas under new identities. Paranagama told the writer that at that time both the international community, including the ICRC, had declined to help Sri Lanka identify those taking cover behind new identities.

Chemmani mass graves

Sri Lanka needs to investigate war crimes allegations, particularly the high profile Chemmani mass grave. The country cannot ignore the continuing accusations with the international media taking advantage of the situation to tarnish the country, especially the Rajapaksa rule. It must be a way of the West taking revenge from the Rajapaksas for going against their wish to save the bold thirsty Tigers. It is like their logic that Israel can do no wrong!

The CNN dealt with the Chemmani issue while the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), in July last year, called for what it claimed as victim-centred investigation into the alleged mass graves in compliance with international law and standards.

Tamil political parties, too, repeatedly demanded tangible action against the perpetrators. The Chemmani mass grave site drew national and international attention in 1998 following the confession of a soldier implicated in the rape and murder of schoolgirl Krishanthy Kumaraswamy. Chemmani has become a powerful and painful symbol of the country’s war-torn past.

Krishanthy Kumaraswamy was raped and killed by soldiers on the 7th of September, 1996. The same group of soldiers later killed her mother, her younger brother and a family friend who went out searching for the teenager.

An excavation, in 1999, led to the recovery of 15 sets of remains, and then the matter was allowed to rest for about a quarter of a century. On the orders of the Jaffna Magistrate’s court, a fresh excavation was ordered last year, following the chance recovery of some skeletal remains and so far nearly 600 sets of human remains have been found, among them children and infants. Tamil media have declared Chemmani as the largest mass grave found in Sri Lanka.

It would be pertinent to mention that some time back the Army was accused of the Mannar mass graves but investigations undertaken by the Office of Missing Persons (OMP), with international expertise, proved the claims false. Bone fragment samples were submitted to Beta Analytic, a specialised US radiocarbon-dating laboratory. This happened during the Yahapalana administration (2015-2019) Later, the lab indicated that the tested bone samples dated back to the period between 1499 and 1719 AD (the 15th to 18th century). That brought an end to the Mannar mass graves hoax.

Whatever the circumstances, the government cannot remain silent regarding the Chemmani mass graves. The area that had been under Security Forces Headquarters, Jaffna continues to receive public attention, both here and abroad. The Army will have to address the issue without further delay. Let me stress the importance of investigating the atrocities perpetrated by others, namely the Indian Army for which the responsibility lies with the government of India as well as the LTTE, and over half a dozen other terrorist groups that subsequently entered the political mainstream.

The formation of Tamil National Army (TNA) by India before the Indian Army pullout by March 1990, too, must receive the attention of Sri Lanka as well the concerned international community. Having totally destabilised the smaller neighbouring county by arming scores of terrorist groups, New Delhi went a step further by the formation of the TNA meant to protect Varatharaja Perumal’s North-East provincial administration.

In spite of President Ranasinghe Premadasa drawing strong criticism for arming the LTTE against the Indian Army, in hindsight, if not for his controversial decision, India’s proxy, TNA may have taken root. Whatever various parties say today, the TNA had been formed to ensure the continuation of the deeply unpopular Perumal’s administration that went to the extent of forcible conscription. India can never absolve itself of responsibility for what it did in Sri Lanka. The destabilisation project, largely influenced by the then Premier Indira Gandhi’s concerns over the developing situation in Tamil Nadu, caused massive death and destruction. No less a person than J.N. Dixit, who served as their High Commissioner in Colombo (1985 to 1989), and later appointed National Security Advisor (2004 to 2005) disclosed in his memoirs ‘Makers of India’s Foreign Policy: Raja Ram Mohun to Yashwant Sinha’, Indira’s Gandhi’s intervention. The late Dixit in no uncertain terms blamed her for Indian intervention in Sri Lanka.

Midweek Review

A street where Sri Lankan stories found their readers

Published

1 day ago

2026/09/9

Sahan Weerasooriya

Margaret Richardson and Asanka de Mel / Ashok Ferrey

By Ifham Nizam

Pictures by Nishan S Priyantha and Kamal Bogoda

Ashok Ferrey took readers into an older Colombo through Colpetty People. Vivimarie Vanderpoorten opened the door to the personal stories behind her poetry. Andrew Fidel Fernando brought cricket, culture and the distinctive world of Sri Lankan school cricket into the conversation, while Ramya Jirasinghe spoke candidly about the long and often difficult road from writing a manuscript to seeing it published.

Then came Margaret Richardson and Asanka de Mel, whose conversation moved from literature to the question of where Sri Lanka should be by 2048.

These were among the voices that gave life to Fairway Street of Stories, a new initiative that sought to bring Sri Lankan English-language writers closer to their readers.

But behind the gathering of authors, readers, books, children, book clubs and aspiring writers was a bigger idea—the brainchild of Amendra Haputhanthri, Director of Sarasavi Bookshop (Pvt) Ltd.

For Haputhanthri, Fairway Street of Stories is not merely another literary event. It is part of a much larger attempt to create a marketplace for Sri Lankan talent and to persuade readers to discover stories that are unmistakably their own.

“Usually, when we have exhibitions, such as the Colombo Book Fair, we always think about what sells the most. Here, we wanted to create a niche market for people who want to read Sri Lankan writing,” she said.

And the first event demonstrated just how wide that literary world can be.

Stories from a Sri Lanka we know

Haputhanthri believes one of the greatest strengths of Sri Lankan English writing is its sense of place.

A thriller set in an unfamiliar foreign city may be entertaining. But a thriller unfolding at the Galle Face Hotel or Mount Lavinia Hotel carries another kind of intimacy for a Sri Lankan reader.

“You have familiar words and actual real-world places that we have been to. There will be a connection with the book,” she said.

That connection can be even more powerful when the story takes readers into places and experiences that are disappearing.

This is one reason she admires Ferrey’s work.

During his Fairway session, Ferrey, together with Tanya de Mel, offered readers an engaging glimpse into the world behind Colpetty People and the Colombo it captures.

Amendra Haputhanthri (extreme left) with winners

For Haputhanthri, Ferrey’s writing is also a record of a rapidly changing city.

“Even Sri Lanka is changing very rapidly. Within Colombo also, the environment is rapidly changing, and that is being addressed nicely in the books of Ashok Ferrey,” she said.

Literature, in that sense, becomes more than entertainment.

It becomes memory.

The stories behind the poems

Vivimarie Vanderpoorten offered a very different literary experience.

Haputhanthri describes her as one of the country’s outstanding contemporary talents, particularly because of the personal histories embedded in her poetry.

A poem on a page may be only a few lines long. But behind those lines can lie an entire life.

Vanderpoorten spoke about those experiences at Fairway, including deeply disturbing events she had witnessed during her university years.

For Haputhanthri, hearing those stories transformed the poems.

“All her stories, there is a back story. All her poems, there is a back story,” she said.

She believes such conversations are precisely what literary events should create—a space where readers can move beyond the printed page and understand the human experience that produced it.

She also encouraged people to read poetry, even if only one poetry collection a year.

Poetry, she believes, forces readers to think beyond what is immediately presented.

“It gives you the ability to think out of the box,” she said.

Cricket is more than a score

Andrew Fidel Fernando brought yet another dimension to the event.

For someone who writes and comments on international cricket, his work naturally takes readers into the world of the game. But Haputhanthri noted that Fernando’s writing also captures the culture surrounding cricket in different countries.

And Sri Lanka has a particularly richstory to tell.

Andrew Fidel Fernando / Dr. Vivimarie Vanderpoorten

For Haputhanthri, the island’s school-cricket culture is something the world should know more about.

“We are the best in the world when it comes to having a culture for school cricket. It is something very unique to our country,” she said.

She even suggested that writers interested in Sri Lankan cricket should explore this largely distinctive phenomenon in greater depth.

Because literature can sometimes reveal what statistics cannot.

A schoolboy walking onto a cricket ground carries with him a school, a city, friendships, rivalries, family expectations and an entire culture.

From manuscript to book

Ramya Jirasinghe’s contribution was particularly relevant to aspiring writers.

She spoke about her own journey and the realities of getting a book published.

Her experience demonstrated that literary success rarely happens overnight.

Winning recognition is one thing. Turning a manuscript into an internationally published book is another.

For emerging writers listening to her, the message was clear: writing requires patience, revision and persistence.

Haputhanthri knows that process well.

Writers, she said, can be rejected repeatedly—even at international level.

And translations create another layer of difficulty.

Sometimes an author reads a translation of his or her work and says: “This doesn’t have my voice.”

That, Haputhanthri acknowledged, illustrates how complex the journey from an original manuscript to another language can be.

A speech from the future

Carmel Miranda

Asanka de Mel and Margaret Richardson brought another perspective to Fairway.

De Mel’s 2048: A Speech from 2048 looks towards the centenary of Sri Lanka’s independence and asks why the country has not yet become a developed nation.

But his message, as Haputhanthri interpreted it, was not one of resignation.

Sri Lanka should not allow its small geographical size to become a psychological limitation.

De Mel’s own journey—from two decades in Silicon Valley to returning to Sri Lanka and embarking on entrepreneurial ventures—was offered as an example of what persistence and confidence can achieve.

For Haputhanthri, it reinforced one of the central lessons of both writing and life.

“There is no shortcut in life,” she said.

Stories that preserve a country

Fairway Street of Stories also reflected Haputhanthri’s belief that literature can preserve aspects of Sri Lankan identity that are increasingly vulnerable.

She spoke about Angampora, Beeralu weaving, traditional culture and historical stories.

Even the country’s royal heritage can become a gateway for a new generation to understand the island’s past.

She recalled seeing foreign visitors browsing books about Sri Lankan kings.

Those books were doing more than recounting history. They were presenting the story of a country with a long and complicated heritage.

Haputhanthri believes Sri Lankan literature can perform a similar role internationally.

“Our stories should also reach people in the same way our food and cultural experiences have reached the world,” she said.

She recalled meeting two foreigners who had visited Sri Lanka around 156 times.

Their extraordinary attachment to the country reminded her that Sri Lanka’s culture has an ability to attract people repeatedly.

The stories of the country, she believes, deserve the same reach.

The problem is not the e-book

Ramya Jirasinghe (third from left)

Yet while Haputhanthri is passionate about books, she is equally concerned about the future of reading.

She does not believe e-books are necessarily the enemy.

“If people are reading an e-version, as long as they are reading something valuable, that will add something to you,” she said.

The bigger threat, in her view, is the endless scrolling culture of the smartphone.

“Scrolling on the phone reduces your attention span and you can’t do any sort of deep work,” she said.

She has observed this challenge among young people entering the workplace and believes sustained concentration is increasingly difficult.

But her answer is not to blame young people.

It is to begin much earlier—with parents and teachers.

“Whatever the parents read, the children also will read,” she said.

‘Readers Are Not Born, They Are Created’

That belief is now developing into another initiative.

Haputhanthri is working on a programme titled ‘Readers Are Not Born, They Are Created’, which she hopes to take from school to school and community to community.

The target will be parents as much as children.

The message is that reading habits are cultivated. They are demonstrated, encouraged and nurtured.

She also hopes to involve children who have themselves developed through reading, allowing them to share their experiences with others.

For Haputhanthri, the issue is deeply personal.

“I would credit everything that I have today, and everything I am today, because of reading,” she said.

She believes avid readers develop empathy, creativity and critical thinking—qualities that are increasingly valuable in a world dominated by information but often short on attention.

Beyond one literary weekend

Fairway Street of Stories, therefore, is not intended to remain a once-a-year literary celebration.

Haputhanthri wants to see activities connected with reading and books continue throughout the year.

A bargain book sale is among the ideas being considered, making use of books from Sarasavi’s extensive network of branches that may have suffered minor damage or discolouration while remaining on shelves.

The next major event will be the book fair, followed by further initiatives.

But the larger ambition goes beyond sales.

It is about discovery.

A reader discovering a Sri Lankan writer.

A child discovering poetry.

An aspiring author discovering that rejection is not the end.

A foreign visitor discovering that Sri Lanka’s stories are as rich as its food, landscapes and traditions.

And a country discovering itself in its own books.

That is perhaps the most significant contribution of Fairway Street of Stories.

Because the authors who gathered there did more than talk about their books.

They demonstrated the many ways in which Sri Lanka can be written, remembered and imagined.

And behind that gathering was Amendra Haputhanthri’s conviction that these stories deserve not only a place on a bookshelf, but a place in the minds of readers—and eventually, a place in the wider world.