A Critical Analysis of Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s Petals of Blood

(Preface/Author’s Note:

I wrote this essay about two years ago as part of my African Literature class in my sophomore year at
Colgate University. As I am currently taking a West Indian Novel class at the University of the West
Indies in Jamaica, I was reviewing this essay to remind myself how to write an analysis on a novel for an
assignment. Since I am not a Literature major (I majored in Psychology and minored in African Studies),
I’ve been a bit scared about being ignorant on the mechanics of literature, especially when doing
analysis; I tend to think of myself as more of the imaginative kind. As I read the essay, I realized there
are a good number of lessons that other people might glean from reading it and therefore decided to
publish it. I know it’s not peer-reviewed and all, but…I am not a professor and all, plus a college
sophomore wrote it. If you haven’t read the book, you definitely should! One day I’ll write about the
incredible impact this book had on me…it was the first time I saw myself really exist in literature.)

In 1977, Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s last artistic work written in English, the novel Petals of Blood was
published. A few months after its publication, Ngugi was arrested and detained, without charge, by the
then authoritarian Kenyan government for a year in a maximum security prison. This was because this
epic novel, in addition to his community-driven plays with the Kamirithu Community and Cultural Center
which were written in Gikuyu such as Ngaahika Ndeenda, criticized the manner in which the political
ruling elite hoodwinked the peasant class into a position of socio-economic privilege while leaving the
latter in a state of deprivation. Petals, which is based on an investigation into the puzzling murder case
of three capitalists: Chui, Kimeria and Mzigo, is written such that it represents different types and
classes of people in the Kenyan society during changing historical times: the pre-colonial, the colonial
and the post-colonial eras. It reveals a society full of betrayals of the peasant class by the powerful ruling
elite. Through this novel, which can be seen as a product of the then ongoing, albeit incomplete,
transition from an Afro-European to an African novelistic style, Ngugi aims at awakening the
revolutionary spirit among Kenyans similar to that of the Kenya Land and Freedom Army (Mau Mau)
freedom fighters during the battle against the European settlers for independence. This national
consciousness is modelled on Frantz Fanon’s conception of the writer as a native intellectual who is in
one of the three phases: the first phase which is characterized by the writer’s unqualified assimilation,
the second phase where the writer is ‘disturbed but decides to remember who he is’ by just recalling the
past life of his people and the third phase which is the fighting phase where the writer becomes an
‘awakener of the people’ (Fanon 40–41). In this essay, I aim at analyzing how Ngugi wa Thiong’o, as an
‘awakener of the people,’ uses the novel Petals to inspire national consciousness especially among the
peasants in the neo-colonial Kenyan society.

The first, and arguably most important, factor to consider when determining Ngugi’s aspirations in
Petals is the people he wrote the book for, his target audience. In his essay from Decolonizing the Mind,
titled The Language of African Fiction, while commenting on the language crisis he found himself in,
Ngugi posed, “I knew whom I was writing about but whom was I writing for?” (Decolonizing the Mind
72) He termed Petals as ‘the climax’ of his Afro-European writing but it is quite clear that despite writing
it in English, Ngugi had the Kenyan working class in mind as the novel’s primary audience. The novel is
set in a remote, but changing, village of Ilmorog and the heroic characters such as Abdulla, Karega,
Munira, Wanja and Nyakinyua are people that the Kenyan peasant population can identify with. In
addition, Ngugi seems to be more accepting towards the peasant class and critical of those who do not
conform to the ideals of this class. For instance, when Munira goes to Ilmorog at the beginning, he tries
to settle in as an intellectual who does not seem, and is afraid, to understand the dynamics of the
peasant class such as the rain patterns or the indo cia thakame, things of blood. Due to this tendency, he
faces resistance from the local people such as Nyakinyua, who sees him as having come to fetch the
remaining children to take them to the city (Petals 9) and Njuguna, Ruoro and Muturi who see him as a
‘msomi’ whose ‘hands are untouched by soil, as if they wear a ngome.’ (11) Ngugi’s portrayal of Munira
here shows a rejection of the middle class intellectuals who refuse to be part of the people. The novel
also chastises the capitalist and political classes through characters such as Mzigo, Chui and Kimeria,
who end up being murdered at the end of the novel, and the sloganeering politician Nderi wa Riiera as
well as Munira’s father Ezekieli. On the other hand, peasant characters such as Nyakinyua and Muturi
are praised as the guardians of the people’s history but who are oppressed by the ruling class and who
should therefore act together to change their situation. Karega, the son of a peasant Mariamu, is shown
as the force behind the resistance of the Ilmorog people and workers against an oppressive regime and
a profiteering capitalist class. This leaves no doubt that Ngugi seeks to provoke the have-nots in Kenya
to see themselves in the characters and their struggles and realize their power to rise against the
tyranny of the haves.

The nature of the language in the novel also tells of a man clear in his address to the working class,
albeit in transition in terms of the language of his writing. Ngugi uses cultural and local references
without providing a clear background for the reader to contextualize the experience in the book. For
instance, when the elderly men discus the weather patterns, not much detail is given and a reader
unaccustomed to the knowledge of the place would find it difficult to make sense of their discussions.
Also Ngugi sprinkles the novel with Gikuyu and Swahili terms without providing a glossary or translation
for most of them. This is evidence of Ngugi’s increasing urge to write to his people rather than just
writing about them only for another group of people to read about. From my own experience as a
Gikuyu speaker and someone able to easily contextualize the condition of life as written in Petals, I
found it much easier to access the meaning compared to my peers who were limited by the Gikuyu and
Swahili in the text and lack of a complete description of the nature of the human condition in the novel.

It is however important to note that while writing Petals, Ngugi still maintained a certain level of doubt
about the ability of the novel written in English to reach this targeted audience since most of them could
not either speak English or had a non-English epistemic interpretation of things unlike the Kenyan upper
class. As he wrote Petals, wa Thiong’o was simultaneously working with Ngugi wa Mirii and The
Kamirithu Community and Cultural Center to write Gikuyu plays like Ngaahika Ndeenda which were
more easily accessible to his primary audience. This must have been a product of his concerns over his
confusion over who his primary audience was in a 1967 interview cited in The Language of African
Fiction and would also explain his insistence that intellectuals from marginalized languages-languages
that have been mainly ignored in literature-realize that their primary audience is the community that
gave them their language (Pozo 2). This in turn explains his irrevocable decision to change the language
of his creative works from English to Gikuyu, starting with his next novel Devil on The Cross published in
1981.

Additionally, some of the literary techniques that Ngugi wa Thiong’o employs in Petals show us a man
implementing his own recommendations in The Language of African Fiction and whose product is likely
to be that which he recommends in the essay. Examples of these include departure from a linear plot,
stories within stories and a constant shift in the narrative voice. Ngugi employs these techniques both as
a means of achieving a narrative of collective consciousness and a move towards a more African novel
inspired by techniques from other experienced writers who influenced him. The shift in the narrative
voice is particularly important for creating collective consciousness. While parts of the novel have an
omniscient narrator or the diary form as Munira recalls memories of his twelve years in Ilmorog, the
third person plural perspective, such as at the beginning of part three, depicts a community galvanized
by their collective struggle against oppression.

The allegorical nature of Petals is another factor that can be seen as Ngugi’s effort to recreate
revolutionary consciousness. As an allegory, Petals is aimed at recreating a representation of a neo-
colonial Kenyan state through characters, places and events that mirror the reality of the actual post-
independence Kenyan state. The class differences are created through the peasant class in the form of
the Ilmorog farmers and herders such as Muturi, Nyakinyua, Njuguna and Ruoro vis-a-vis the capitalist
and the political class represented by characters such as Nderi wa Riera, Mzigo, Chui and Kimeria. There
is also a class trapped in the middle which is represented by the immigrants to Ilmorog, particularly
through the character of Munira. In addition, each character in the novel seems to play a specific role
which is typical of a certain group of people in the real Kenyan society. Munira, for instance, represents
the middle class that ‘stood outside’ during the struggle for independence and is struggling to fit into the
rest of society by attempting to ‘pay back’ through service but who still fear to explore the tough
questions of the rampant inequality as depicted by his anxiety in refusing to answer the children’s
questions about the ‘flower with petals of blood.’ (Petals 12, 26) Munira aptly represents the second
phase of the native intellectual as conceptualized by Fanon. The more aggressive Karega, whose name
coincidentally means ‘the one who resists’ in Gikuyu, is a representation of the third phase of the native
intellectual who is willing to confront the history and material reality of his people and with his people.
As a teacher, he teaches the children about the world outside Ilmorog and he actively seeks a deeper
understanding of the historical and political nuances of his people especially after meeting the lawyer
who represents a political class of revolutionaries but whose fixation on property is faulted. Wanja on
her part represents the struggles of a Kenyan woman who is forced by the circumstances to use her
sexual power to gain favours but who nevertheless resists the capitalistic class oppression. Abdulla
represents the revolutionaries who have been part of historical struggles but who have been betrayed
and continue to languish in abjection. Joseph and Wanja’s unborn baby seem to represent an upcoming
generation of revolutionaries who shall fight for a more just Kenya. On the other hand, the capitalists
(Kimeria, Chui and Mzigo) seem to represent ‘slaves of the monster god’ that is money while Nderi wa
Riiera represents the deceitful neo-colonial politicians whose efforts to terrorize and divide the people
through the Kamwene Cultural Organization (KCO) are purely for his selfish gain.

Petals can also be seen as an African adaptation of the modernist form of artistic expression. Modernism
is an artistic movement that started in the 19th Century and became more popular in the early 20th
century through artists such as Pablo Picasso, Bertolt Brecht and Igor Stravinsky. It was characterized by
a rejection of the norms set by prior forms such as realism and romanticism, criticism of the modern
form of life dominated by capitalism and a higher level of alienation of the audience so as to stir deeper
thinking and understanding. Edna Aizenberg argues that as African states found themselves in a post-
independence era crisis, as the ruling class usurped the socio-economic power leaving the economies on
the decline, the African intelligentsia felt the need to develop a ‘literary language to symbolically enact
the disillusionment…a style in which the complex form, strained language and uncertain ground of the
modernist aesthetic were melded with indigenous linguistic and narrative traditions to transmit the new
instability and bitterness of African society” (Aizenberg 89). She correctly cites Ngugi wa Thiong’o,
alongside Wole Soyinka, Ayi Kwei Armah, Yambo Ouologuem and Kofi Awoonor, as part of this new
movement of African writers. Petals, in many ways shows a novel fitting modernist ideals and
aspirations, for instance through alienation by using Gikuyu words and phrases without translation, and
espousing Marxist ideology to unsettle capitalistic inequality.

The didactic nature of Petals, which can also be viewed as a modernist resistance to the classical
novelistic norms and a function of Ngugi’s address to Kenyan working class, also tells of a novel bent on
teaching as a way of raising a national revolutionary consciousness. While a classical western novel
would aim at entertaining its readers through its fiction in their leisure time, Petals takes a different
path. While it certainly entertains as an investigative thriller, it also teaches Kenyan history and the
present socio-economic and political condition. At some points, it takes on a completely didactic form to
the extent that it looks like a textbook with elements of a novel. For instance, at the beginning of part
two, Nyakinyua tells the Ilmorog people a story about the history of Ilmorog. Despite the fact that it
takes on a narrative form, this part of the novel clearly teaches the pre-colonial history since the time of
the founder of the community, Ndemi, to the coming of the colonialists when people like Munoru
betrayed the community by collaborating and getting assimilated by the Europeans while Nyakinyua’s
husband resisted (Petals 145–149). By doing this Ngugi wants the Kenyan people to understand their
past, and while not romanticising it, learn lessons from it in order to change their current condition.

Also important in considering Petals as a tool for inspiring a revolutionary consciousness is the way in
which Ngugi views Kenyan history as seen by different types of people. In the interview with Michael
Pozo, Ngugi maintains that aesthetics do not occur in a social vacuum and as such art must reflect the
conception of life which it represents (Pozo 2). For this reason, Ngugi looks into different versions of
history ranging from the tautological “history is history” (Petals 206) by Chui at Siriana meant at
institutionally assimilating Kenyan students to the black professors who viewed African history as “one
of wanderlust and pointless warfare between peoples” (237). This is in sharp contrast to history that
Nyakinyua made the Ilmorog people relive through her songs in the Theng’eta drinking session. The
Theng’eta-inspired history is one that is in touch with the people’s present reality and the one that leads
to the revelation of truth. This version of history, also praised by Fanon “the truths of a nation are in the
first place its realities” (Fanon 42), is the one that Ngugi believes will awaken the people into national
consciousness.

It is therefore clear that Ngugi used his last English literary work, Petals of Blood, to present the history
and present reality of the Kenyan people in the form of an allegory that was constructed based on the
collective struggle of the Ilmorog people to inspire consciousness among the Kenyan peasant and
working class.
A giraya is a familiar object in most Sinhala homes. Fashioned out of brass, steel, silver or gold it
comes in a variety of shapes and sizes according to the status of it's owner. Sometimes it comes in a
human shape with a woman's face and palms clasped in mute worship. A giraya could be called upon
to play a dual role...

...in this story, recorded in a diary, a sensitive young woman is caught like an arecaunt between the
blades of giraya. Surrounded by twisted, abnormal characters, in an atmosphere of frustration,
passion and thwarted desire, living in a crumbling old walauwe which is hostile to a fast changing
society, where she is desperate.

Earlier this year Punyakante Wijenaike published what she suggests would be her last book. I was
immensely sad as I read it, for I remembered reading her first book, half a century ago. That was ‘The
Third Woman’, a collection of short stories that I devoured. That was in Kurunagala, I remember, at the
old house in which my grandmother had been born. The place, where a cow was brought in to be milked
each morning, with the old tennis court going to seed at the front under a massive mara tree, the paddy
fields stretching out at the back to infinite distances, suited that extraordinary book with its brilliant
evocations of rural life.

I was just 9 then, and perhaps I did not understand everything, given the subtle sexual motivations of
many of her protagonists. But I could appreciate the power of the stories, and the emotions of her
characters, the mother-in-law seeing power pass from her, the elderly spinster with a lodger visited by a
mysterious man who turned out to be her dead husband, and the character of the title, a young woman
who married someone who had two wives already, who had got on very well, but were in turn murdered
by the new entrant into the fold.

A few years later she wrote ‘Giraya’, still perhaps the most impressive work by a Sri Lankan writer living in
this country. It is a compelling story of a feudal household falling to pieces, with a brilliant narrative voice,
the poor girl married to the son of the house, who turns out to be homosexual and not in fact the son of
his putative father. The mother is the strongest character in the book, her power symbolized by the
giraya, wielded for her usually by an old and devoted servant. She was played superbly by Trilicia
Gunawardena in the teledrama, though sadly Rupavahini left out the hints of lesbianism in the
relationship of the two old women.

I did not know Punyakante then, but we became good friends when I became involved in the English
Association of Sri Lanka and then worked in the British Council. One of my projects was to popularize Sri
Lankan writing in English, and I think this would not have happened, had I not had magnificient support
from my bosses at the British Council who encouraged regular programmes featuring the writers in the at
least monthly special programmes I conducted, in addition to the weekly film and the quarterly tours we
got out from London.

Punyakante went from strength to strength in those years. She produced an autobiography which made
me understand to some extent at least how this child of a privileged background had come to empathize
so successfully with people from backgrounds so very different from her own. She was the child of Justin
Kotelawala, and grew up in the mansion that is now the Ministry of Higher Education, in a corner of which,
in the mid-nineties, I ran the pre-University General English Language Training programme. She had a
younger brother, Lalith, who became a financial moghul, and later caused misery to so many, when his
Ceylinco group collapsed.

Though I believe Punyakante always got on well with her brother, the book reveals the trauma caused to
a quiet girl by the arrival when she was growing up of a male sibling who immediately became the centre
of attention. I suspect her understanding of loneliness and the anguish of outsiders owes much to this
early experience.

By the time I knew her, she was a widow, her husband having died in 1975, as she movingly describes in
the title story of her last book. The marriage seems to have been an extraordinarily happy one, which
seems odd given the tension rid marriages of her three great novels, ‘Giraya’, ‘The Waiting Earth’ and
‘Amulet’, the last winning the Gratiaen Award for 1994. That was embarrassing, for the previous year, the
first in which the award was given, we had asked her to be one of the judges. The next year ‘Amulet’ had
strong competition, for the best of our other writers, Jean Arasanayagam and Anne Ranasinghe, both
entered, but on balance ‘Amulet’ was the most impressive entry that year, and the charge of an insider
job was mean and unwarranted.

But Punyakante had suffered the viciousness of our critics before. In the seventies she had been attacked
by two university academics who could not understand her subtle characterization. They romanticized the
passive wife of ‘The Waiting Earth’, as part of what I termed the ‘Village Well’ syndrome of our then
academics who wanted rural romanticism. They treated James Gunawardena with similar contumely, and
completely failed to highlight the brilliance of his social analysis in ‘The Awakening of Dr Kirthi and other
stories’, which highlighted the malaise in our public system when perhaps the rot could have been
stemmed.

Unlike James who, understandably but sadly, was embittered by this experience, Punyakante continued
her tranquil self. She would regularly contribute short stories to the ‘New Lankan Review’ that I started in
1983, and also later to ‘Channels’, when we set up the English Writers Cooperative with British Council
assistance in 1989. Her range expanded, and she dealt eloquently with terrorism, an old man forced to
carry explosives in a handcart, youngsters forced into terrorism, soldiers looking positively with Tamils
without being blinded by terrorist activity.

Her approach is free of sectarianism, and her natural sympathy for youngsters crossing chasms to be
together informs these writings too. Unusually, some of these stories end happily, though in cases dealing
with social barriers she is more pessimistic. The latest book contains several examples of this, but also
deals with couples growing old together. One of the stories is strange and depressing, but the other has
an unexpected but appropriate happy ending.

That is the last story in the book, and I would like to think Punyakante ends her writing career on a note of
optimism. But I would also like to note another story, in which, as twice before, she deals with monks in a
temple, wondering how to cope with the pressures of the world outside. This one is slight, but raises
illuminatingly of how religion needs to adjust to changing social needs. This needs to be done
sympathetically however, with understanding of how old practices die hard.

That theme was explored beautifully in what I used to think was her best short story, ‘Retreat’. But that
was run close, if not superseded, by a beautiful study of a young monk, tempted by the free and intimate
life of monkeys. The manner in which the Chief Priest sought to understand and guide him is a model for
all those dealing with attitudes different from their own.
In the end what stands out in Punyakante’s work is empathy, keen understanding of what makes people
act the way they do, and sympathy for their failings and needs. There can be no greater legacy for a
writer.

This book was written almost twenty years ago the story retains its gripping power.the giraya is
stil being used for slicing arecanut as well as destroying the power of evil in an exorcists hand.
the story written in the form of diary kept by young wife and mother,reveals she is at ,times,like
the arecanut caught in the blades of giraya.her university career crashes on the sudden death of
her father.she is propelled in to a marriage with a man she knows littlevof except that he comes
from a feudal family living in a walauwe on their ancestral property.
her disillusionment comes with her despair as the hope of a bright future is shattered
again.despite the birth of her son,she finds she is not accepted by her husband nor his
familiy.surrounded by locked doors and twisted,emotionally retarded people she finds her self,not
in the expected lap of luxury,but in a kind twilight zone.she sits on fungus covered stone benches
, looks at roses withering on the steam and marble bird bath that is cracked and no longer holds
water.she is begins a kind of psychological battle with her powerful,dominating mother in low.she
trying to make friends.she only succees in demons who threaten her own life.
she is compelled,then to turn to very instrument of power she had fought against the giraya to
save herself and her son.

Scrutinising complex human emotions

By Ranga CHANDRARATHNE

The foremost writer in English fiction in Sri Lanka, Punyakante Wijenaike offers a
multifaceted personality embodying noble qualities of kindheartedness, pleasant
disposition and above all a gracious lady to her finger tips. With her extraordinary
power of imagination she has grown a bed of flowers in an otherwise, desolate meadow
of Sri Lankan writings in English.

Thus born literary roses like "The Waiting Earth", "

Giraya"," A way of life", "Yukthi and other stories",
"Amulet", "To follow the Sun". The fragrance of her
writing pervades the literary landscape inspiring new
generations of writers to come.

Her corpus of writing explores a wide range of issues

and complex human emotions in a lucid and down -
to- earth diction which, over the years, has become
her signature. My first literary encounter with her is
"The Waiting Earth" with its memorable picture on
the cover, taken from the bravura "Sagara Jalaya
Madi Handuva Oba Handa" by Sumitra Peiries, that
explores the issue of landless peasantry who are
longing to own a plot of land to be passed on to their children as inheritance.

In "Giraya" and "Amulet", Punyakante, for the first time, brought themes of
homosexuality and incest which above all indicate that the writer is sensitive to the
upheavals in society. She has amply demonstrated through her creative writings that
she understood the roots of the nation and codified them in a deep-rooted manner.

Themes

Q: From earlier on, you have been dealing with myriads of themes associated with
village life. Although you were born and bred in the city, you have skilfully portrayed
many facets of village life, first in your short stories and later in your novels. In fact,
your first novel Waiting Earth, deals with the issue of landlessness.

How do you look at the main character of Waiting Earth, Podi Singho who represents
the landless masses of the village?

A: Although I was born and bred in the city of Colombo I was in touch with a lot of
villagers who worked in our ancestral home and to whose stories I was a patient
listener. I also carried a vivid imagination even as a child and could invent stories of my
own. The main character of Podi Singho, the landless farmer, may have sprung from
observing the superintendants of father's many estates who worked on his lands
without owning any land of their own.

The Story was inspired by the people of that period. I came to know that such people
did exist because my father and grandfather had land and people were working on
them. I also came to know women who were silent and patient carrying heavy burdens
without complaints. Women worked there on the land and perhaps, even in our home.
Today, we rarely do find such people and may be in a way that is a kind of
advancement in Sri Lanka.

The earth

Q: The second major character of Waiting Earth is Sellohamy, the wife of Podi Singho
who indirectly represents the earth. How far, do you think, Sellohamy, portrays the
archetype traditional Sri Lankan woman?

A: Sellohamy of The Waiting Earth , was based on a real Sellohamy who worked in our
household, always patient, simple and bearing up with a lot of trials. To me she
represented Mother Earth herself.

Q: If you consider Sellohamy from a feminist perspective, how far Sri Lankan woman
has changed her traditional role as a patient wife and mother?

A: Today you may still find a Sellohamy, but the majority of women hi Sri Lanka have
changed from their traditional role of humility and is no longer willing to be a part of the
background in a home. Today more roads, television and newspapers which they are
able to read now, not to mention the hand-phone, have turned the average village
housewife into a different person.

Teledrama

Q: Giraya is one of your best known novels, which was made into a teledrama by
Dr.Lester James Peries. In Giraya, you deal with the issue of homosexuality apart from
portraying the power play among the characters in a traditional mansion or Walauwwa.
The power wielded by the main female butler Lucia Hami is represented by the nut-
cracker.

How did you conceive the life like character of Lucia Hami?

A: In my childhood home there was a woman (my ayah) reflecting the character of
Lucia Hamy who used to terrorise me but without the giraya. The giraya was a general
arecanut slicer used by grandmother and all the women slicing arecanut to chew along
with then- betel. Those days, even in city homes, the elite chewed betel. Also it was
used in exorcism ceremonies by my grandmother, to cut limes and drop them in water
thus exorcising the power of the evil eye.

Q: Perhaps, Giraya which was made into a teledrama made you a household name not
only among English readers but also among Sri Lankans throughout the country. What
inspired you to pen the novel? And you have, for the first time, mentioned about
homosexual relationship in the novel Giraya and did you think about this aspect when
you wrote the novel or did it find its way into the plot quite
unintentionally?
A: What inspired me to write the novel was when I came
across a giraya very different from the usual hum-drum
black metal object, in the Colombo museum. This nut-
cracker lay in the form of a woman with her legs spread
wide open and hands clasped in constant prayer. Also it
was made out of shining brass which shone like gold. At
once, I was inspired by this instrument that this must have
belonged to a very special elite household maybe with
something to hide. The subject of homo- sexuality may
have crept into the plot because I knew such a person
living in a similar background. But Adelaine herself
represented the giraya with the legs spread out.

Behaviour

Q: The principal character of the novel is Lal who

apparently has been brought up by Lucia Hamy. Even after
the marriage, Lal does not change his social behaviour and is portrayed as rather a
mysterious character. Do you think that Lal is a product of the society in which he grew
up?

A: Yes, Lai is a product of the household he grew up, not society. Over-powered by
women of his home he turned towards making love with his own sex. That is also the
reason he feared to get close to his own wife who came from a different background.

As for the homosexual part in it, I did not invent It was in my own backdrop. Giraya is
the only novel that did not need research. I think most of the material came from my
own background.

That is the Walauwa, a kind of house I lived. It was in Colombo. Giraya was also there
but not in this shape. It was an ordinary one. It was used very often for arecanut slicing
for my grandmother and my mother as well use for cutting lime for "Asvaha" and other
rituals. So that it is something I knew from my own background and mystic elements
came naturally because my grandmother was superstitious and they did a lot of those
ceremonies.

The homosexual part came from some one I knew. He was that way inclined. The story
was imagination.

Incest

Q: Amulet is a novel which deals with the issue of incest which is quite prevalent in Sri
Lanka within the closets of traditional family. The principal character of the novel
Senani had an incestuous relationship with his sister. Looking back on, how do you
analyse the behaviour of Senani against his newly married wife Shyamali who
ultimately unravels the mystery?
A: Amulet - in the old Kandyan kingdom brothers used to share one wife. But today's
men sometimes abuse their daughters if the wife is not available or live with another
woman.

In Senani's case he was compelled by his old ayah to have sex with his own sister at
the age of five in a bathtub. Also the Amulet put round his wife's neck by her parents
acted as an obstacle to free sex. To quote: 'There it lay, an obstacle between her
breasts, staring me in the face. I could not caress her nipples because of this metal
object of protection.

Why didn't she sense this and remove it when we made love? She is completely
ignorant of the needs of a man. Because she lets this Amulet stand between us I start
physically attacking the most sensitive part of her body. Once, in a rage, I threw the
Amulet over her shoulder and battered her breasts...

Q: Apart from the issue of incest, the novel Amulet quite candidly portrays the plight of
women in the pre-independent Sri Lanka whose fate is bounded by harsh regime of
traditions. How do you compare and contrast Shyamali's character with contemporary
Sri Lankan woman?

Harsh regime

A: .In pre-independent Sri Lanka, young girls were kept strictly under a harsh regime
of parental care backed by British Victorian, colonial influence in the city and by our
own inherited restrictions in the countryside. Today it is rare to find a woman with
Shyamali's character as most young girls after the Advanced Level examination either
enter university or take up employment.

Q: In Coming to terms, you have deviated from your favoured themes of village life and
focused on changing urban socio-economic landscape. The central theme of the novel is
the changing social ethos and perception of marriage, sex and premarital sex. It is a
controversial area that contemporary Sri Lankan writers dare to enter into. In the light
of fast changing ethos and perceptions, how do you compare and contrast the principal
character in the novel with contemporary youth?

A: Yes, In 'Coming to terms' , I have deviated from the village to the city.

The theme is on the changing social structure of our lives. It also, maybe the only story
that end happily! To quote : Revathi is the daughter of a humble schoolmaster living in
a single storeyed house named the Gurugedare which stands next to a mansion with
forbidding gates named Mahagedare in which live Bandula. In the first house the
language used is Sinhala and the mother of the house does her own housework and
cooking wheras in the mansion lives Evelyn Nona, mother of Bandula who speaks in
English. Revathi and Bandula's relationship starts with throwing and skipping the
mango seed outside the iron gate of Mahagedare . Eventually they over-look class and
background and get married.
 Conflict

Q: As a writer, you have been sensitive to the protracted conflict which claimed
thousands of lives. Your novels such as The Enemy within and When the Guns fall
silent, deal with the conflict. As a creative writer how do you perceive different kinds of
conflicts?

A: My novels he Enemy within and When the Guns fall silent deals as you have said,
with conflict of war.

All I can say in reply is that a creative and sensitive writer should be able to handle any
kind of conflict, as example of above Coming to terms is also another form of conflict
Both end with peace.

Q: 'That Deep Silence' , the collection of short stories and poems is a book with moving
short stories. The title story 'That Deep Silence', for instance codifying the erosion of
cardinal values which make Asian family a unique and strong entity. How do you
analyse the present generation admiring material prosperity and financial gains against
sentimental values?

A: The title story of my collection of short stories is That Deep Silence. The family unit
in Asia which includes Sri Lanka, as you say, was once s strong united entity where
younger family members looked after elders as they grew old and feeble.

Today, unfortunately, commercialism and the pressing need to look after your
immediate family which consists of father, mother and offspring makes the young put
prosperity and financial gains before their old parents. Many 'homes' have sprung up
where one could leave an old parent to be looked after by strangers for sum of money.

'I will hang old family pictures round the wall of your new room,' daughter tells old
mother. 'Soon you will begin to feel at home. The other old ladies living here will make
you feel at home.'

QUOTING: 'A deep silence fell over me. The same silence which came when she broke
our old home so that she could build a condominium from which she could make
money.

This silence will continue to hold me and sustain me through my new life ahead...

Q: Traditional place in a house for grandparents has gradually been diminished and
instead 'homes for the Elders' and paying homes for the elders have come up along
with high rising apartments. How do you view this erosion of long held societal values
and the collapse of leisurely life style of the bygone era and emerging of hectic
commercial lifestyle which its entire purpose is earning money?

Social values
A: As said long held social values and the leisurely life of a bygone era is over.

Like global warming we have to come to terms with it.

Q: "The Third Woman" was a collection of short stories that you penned in 1963 by and
large reflecting the life in Sri Lankan villages. Even at the time, mentioning of a 'third
marriage' or man having three women in a conservative society would have been a
radical departure from the widely held norms of society. How do you consider 'The Third
Woman 'in your literary career and does it mark a milestone in your career?

A: The Third Woman does mark a milestone in my life, as well as my career, because it
was my first publication in book form in 1963.

Q: 'The Rebel 'a collection of short stories written in 1979 and was based on the JVP
insurrection. In retrospect, how did the 1971 insurrection influence you as a writer?

The Rebel in 1979 on the JVP insurrection influenced me a great deal. Together with a
writer friend I went to interview some of the students who were involved in the
rebellion. But they would not talk with us.

I felt its impact only when we underwent same kind of terror like in the recent past in
Colombo over bombs. There were no bombs then but there were shortages of food and
drugs in hospitals because my own daughter had to enter hospital and we had to bring
drugs down from abroad. JVP insurgents would patrol outside the hospital prevent
workers from coming to work.

There was a threat of water being cut in Colombo. I was not aware this insurgency was
to take place but the strange thing I remembered was Mrs. Sybil Wettasinghe and I
went to interview just a day before it started. Girl students answered questions quite
normally. Then we learnt they were also into this.

Q: "A way of life "which you wrote in 1987, is an important work in terms of its literary
value and In terms of recollecting your life. As a mature writer who has witnessed the
changes that the country has been going through since the independence, how do you
perceive your life? What is the philosophy which guides the course of your life?

A: A way of life reveals my past. Apart from literary value it shows me how I became
what I am today. How it made me live in a world of fantasy, refusing to face reality.

I know the changes because my family was involved in politics before independence. I
remembered we were under Colonial rule. I went to school managed by sisters from
abroad.

I felt having this resentment deep inside me that everything we had to eat, was
imported just from abroad; tinned foods, toys. I felt a kind of a rebellion in the way we
were living. But life has changed. Today I think we have a better balance between our
own way of living and the West. I have gone through a lot of changes, good and bad.
We have lived with our back to the wall but I have never had the desire to leave the
country unless I was compelled to.

Political unheavals

Q: "Yukthi" (Justice) which came in 1991, is also a collection of short stories where you
have been influenced by political upheaval culminating in the signing of the now defunct
Indo-Sri Lanka Agreement. The main story is woven around navy officer who attacked
the visiting Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. How do you view the entire episode and
subsequent events which changed the course of the country?

A: Yokthi which means justice is based on the story of the naval rating who was brave
enough to stand up for his principles when he aimed a blow at the visiting Prime
Minister of India, Rajiv Gandhi. To me he represented the feelings of a whole country
which, most politicians, are unaware of most of the time.

I viewed the episode of the naval rating's unfortunate act with great interest. I followed
all the newspaper articles. I felt moved by his feelings as if I too felt myself his feeling
of injustice. He was a man who had fought against our enemy and almost sacrificed his
life. Suddenly there are some changes being introduced into the country.

Unlike most people in Colombo I felt I had a feeling of sympathy with this naval rating
who I felt had a reason to act in this manner.

That he must have felt injustice that after having fought for the country, here the
foreign intervention was being brought and it was insult for him to be a guard of honour
for the Prime Minister who had come to divide this country.

I wrote the story in the form of a court room where he is being judged. He was kind of
standing up for the country. That was the chief story in the book.

But later on, I came across newspaper cutting of his own story and I was amazed to
find it was very close to what I have imagined.