Sri Lankan Author Sonali Deraniyagala lost her husband, two sons, and mother and father in the Dec. 26, 2004 tsunami, which killed an estimated 230,000 people. Her story is told in Wave (2013, ISBN 978-0-307-96269-0). It’s a story of tragedy, a personal loss reiterated, emphasized, and relentlessly pounded into the reader on virtually every page. […]
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WoWasis product review: a wristwatch compass that’s efficient and inexpensive
Carry this great small compass with you whenever you’re in an unfamliar place
Read the rest of this entry »WoWasis book review: Nihal DeSilva’s ‘The Giniralla Conspiracy,’ Sri Lanka
The Giniralla Conspiracy (2005, ISBN 978-955-1266-02-8), was Sri Lankan novelist Nihal DeSilva’s third and final completed book hHe was killed by a landmine while in his mid-50s, making for a short, but stellar literary career). Like his two previous books, The Far-Spent Day, and the Gratiaen Prize-winning The Road from Elephant Pass, it is based […]
Read the rest of this entry »How to avoid excessive phone charges when traveling in Asia
Avoiding excessive phone charges while traveling is easy. Here’s how…
Read the rest of this entry »WoWasis book review: Nihal DeSilva’s ‘The Far Spent Day,’ Sri Lanka
Nihal DeSilva was a formidable novelist, a master of plot and character development who was killed by a landmine while in his mid-50s, only three books into a literary career that promised to propel him into the firament of notable writers of political intrigue. The Far-Spent Day (2004, ISBN 978-955-8095-74-4), like his previous book, the […]
Read the rest of this entry »WoWasis book review: the life of a surgeon in Sri Lanka, by Dr. Philip Veerasingam
Dr. Philip G. Veerasingam worked in the Department of Health, Ceylon/Sri Lanka, from 1965 to 2000, and discusses his life as a surgeon in a memoir, The Cry of the Devil Bird: Incidents in the Life of a Surgeon (2010, ISBN 978-955-1723-13-2). It is essentially the story of a country doctor, working in at times […]
Read the rest of this entry »WoWasis book review: ‘Chinaman,’ a fictional Sri Lankan cricket tale by Shehan Karunatilaka
There’s some damn good fiction coming out of Sri Lanka these days, but it’s not all that easy to find. Bookstores exist in Colombo, but they’re not exactly on tourist routes. We at WoWasis found really great stores — including the Odel shop — in the shopping gallery at the airport, near the exit gates […]
Read the rest of this entry »WoWasis book review: ‘Blue Stories for Adults’ erotica from Sri Lanka
In her introduction to Blue Stories for Adults (2010, ISBN 978-955-8897-20-1) editor (and contributing author) Ameena Hussein writes that one of the aims of the book is to challenge stereotypes of Sri Lankan sexuality. She also mentions that it does not “claim to be the representative literature of Sri Lankan erotica… but it is a […]
Read the rest of this entry »WoWasis book review: ‘The Cultural Triangle of Sri Lanka’ by UNESCO
Sri Lanka’s Cultural Triangle embraces an area encompassing the ancient sites of Anuradhapura, Dambulla, Polonnaruwa, and Segiriya, and the city of Kandy. This area is perhaps the area most visited on the island, and is well worth the trip. Each of the ancient sites have book kiosks in the museums, and there are a number […]
Read the rest of this entry »WoWasis visits Buduruwagala, home of Sri Lanka’s massive carved Buddha statues
Buduruwagala is easy to miss, sitting 4 km off the main road, roughly 5 km south of the town of Wellawaya, on the A2 road, off the turn-off to Tissa. But you shouldn’t miss it. There are several massive statues carved into the rock, some of which have fine detail, including a Buddha statue that, […]
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