SUNSET of ILLUSIONS Book August 2025
A book on Sri Lanka FOR Sri Lankans and anyone interested in the 26-year war which decimated that beautiful isle! Loaded with facts and nostalgic memories, it conclusively proves how friendship and love can overcome war.
A review by Jeremy De Lima- delima@bigpond.net.au
Factual Fiction is relatively a modern genre, although according to the New York Times1 it has been around since the time of Plutarch, an ancient Greek philosopher. 1https://www.nytimes.com/1966/05/15/archives/fictional-facts-as-factual-fiction.html
Sunset of Illusions is certainly this, presenting facts of that terrible war, cleverly woven into the fictional lives of the principal characters.
The plot revolves around the main man, a Tamil with a non-generic descriptive name of “Jeevan Rasiah” who is the principal in half of the book of 410 pages. Jeevan’s best friend at school (it is obvious which school from the colour of the flag!) is Chrishan Jayasinghe, a Sinhalese with army connections. Counter-balancing these 2 main Sri Lankan races, you would expect a Muslim, but the author has chosen a Burgher girl of European ancestry – Sandrine (Sandy) Jansen. A very good choice due to the Dutch, Portuguese and British influence on this island’s heritage.
Fernando’s details are astoundingly accurate, like the two destructive bombs at Maradana station and the Central Bank. You will note the author is well read as his quotes are very appropriate like Niezsche’s “There are no Eternal facts and there are no Absolute Truths” (Page 127). He really pulls at generational heartstrings when he touches on Joni Mitchells song “Looked at Life from both sides now” (The author enhanced this theme by arranging for a young artist to perform the song during the book launch.)
While the author’s deliberately selects a restrictive audience, any intelligent reader worldwide will enjoy it. As committed fiction readers know, a good book leaves you unable to put it down, waiting with unabated expectations to find how it ends, and this is exactly what Fernando has done. He has not descended to the cheap theme of sex, instead using the emotive emotions of friendship and love. Without revealing details, suffice to say the story has a bittersweet ending. In the reviewer’s opinion, the best summary of the book is in its quote “Courage is not confrontation, but understanding”
Very well written for a first attempt, this hitherto unpublished author, C.M. Fernando captures readers with his first paperback novel, published in Sri Lanka in August 2025. Looking forward to the next!
Available in Sri Lanka from : thejamfruittreepublications@gmail.com and leading bookshops like bookshop@barefoot.lk. In Australia, please contact the reviewer delima@bigpond.net.au
