![]() ![]() The novel unfolds as a sequence of personal accounts by each of the members of the Herath household, beginning and ending with accounts by Latha, the servant maid, who is perhaps Rajith’s least convincing character. Thomas’ educated children - and its satellites and how they, as players of a domestic web come together and go apart, provides a very well thought out, well articulated storyline delivered through careful craftsmanship. Overall, Rajith’s narrative of the Herath family - middle class working couple and their (what appears as) Ladies’ College and St. Weaved as a narrative that is located in the months that run up to the Sri Lankan government’s military crushing of the LTTE in May 2009, and the months that follow that euphoric climax of violent uncompromising nationalism, Rajith looks at an English speaking, western-exposed, just-off-Colombo middle class space, its ruptures, hiatuses, tensions and anxieties in trying to give shape to a complex family juxtaposed with a complex national space at logger-heads with itself. Rajith Savanadasa’s Ruins, unlike in the case of many writers writing of Lanka from destinations away from it, was refreshing and less of a turn off, as he is mostly successful in his attempt at recovering the spirit, sentiment and the pulse of a nation, a historic climate and a social context through his debut. ![]()
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