Novella by Sri Lankan writer – Channa Wickremesekera – A new Edition of the 2016 novel – TRACKS
This is to introduce a novella by a talented Sri Lankan writer in Melbourne, Channa Wickremesekera. It is also one of the few works of fiction by a Sri Lankan writer dealing with same-sex relationships.
A novel about friendship, growing up, and unrequited love. One of the few works of fiction on same-sex relationships from a Sri Lankan writer in Australia.
Shehan has a crush on Robbie, his classmate and friend. Robbie is straight and finds his friend’s afections unsettling. But then, that is all he has going for him in his turbulent life. When they both realise it, it is too late.
The novella unravels a powerful plot set against Anglo, Arab and Sri Lankan socio-cultural contexts. Through the deeply private story of the development and degeneration of the highly charged sexual crush that Shehan develops for Robbie, the novel investigates the consequences of centre-periphery culture clashes.
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Assoc-professor Chandani Lokuge,in the Journal of Commonwealth Literature, December 2016.
Wickremesekera weaves this bleak tale with a fine ear for the language and mores of young people and leavens the inevitable sadness with a sardonic wit and an honest take on adolescent sexuality.
Michael Cooke, Green Left Weekly
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The First=person narrative powerfully immerses the reader into Shehan’s point of view. This engages us to inhabit his perspective, taking us past the point of judgement or personal distaste, latent homophobia or prejudice against violent ‘yobbo’ delinquent youth.
Devika Brendon, Ceylon Today
Buy the book at Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com.au/Tracks-Wickremeseke-Channa/dp/0646958003
Also by Channa Wickremesekera: – The Bogans
https://www.amazon.com.au/Bogans-Channa-Wickremesekera/dp/0648134911
Park Court is a fairly typical Melbourne neighbourhood, hosting a very diverse, multicultural community. Africans, Indians, Chinese, Lebanese, Sri Lankans, Christians, Muslims, straight and gay people, they all live there, and not always peacefully. What is lacking, however, is a White family to complete the diversity. But when one finally moves into the court, it is more than what anyone had bargained for.
Buy Now:– https://www.amazon.com.au/Tough-Apprenticeship-Military-Against-Militants
The Sri Lankan security forces that defeated the Liberation Tugers of Tamil Ealam in May 2009 evolved with that military conflict. Beginning as little more than a ceremonial establishment of a few thousand men,they matured during the sourse of the conflict into large, effective fighting forces that were eventually capable of completely defeating one of the most dangerous guerrilla organisations in the world.
Using a wide range of sources Wickremesekera examines the challenges faced by Sri Lanka’s military forces during the first phase of the armed conflict with the Tamil militants from the first deployment of the army in the North to combat terrorism in 1979 to the first major military operation conducted by the Sri Lankan armed forces in May 1987. It was a period of unprecedented stress and strain for a small Third World military with little or no experience in handling the threat from a ruthless and highly motivated enemy. The military’s response demonstrated their inadequate training as well as their political masters’ skewed view of the conflict, frequently leading to disastrous outcomes. But it was also a period of learning. Despite many bloody setbacks and failures the armed forces gradually learned the rudiments of fighting a guerrilla enemy, the culmination of this apprenticeship being the launching of ‘Operation Liberation’, the first brigade-strength operation conducted by the Sri Lankan army. Its conduct and the end result showd that the armed forces still had a lot to learn but now they were by no means the bumbling amateurs they were at the beginnig of the conflict.
