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 on political intrigue specific to Sri Lanaka, but endemic to much of the world.

In the sense that he based much of his tale on the history of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) student Marxist movement, it’s a book of historical fiction. What initially fascinated us here at WoWasis is the rhetoric and physical coercion used to confront first-year university students, who are bullied by upperclassmen (there are no female leaders) and a sympathetic school administration to join the movement. Eventually, the leader of the more moderate school union is murdered. Sujatha, a girl from a poor village, is the protagonist who wants to change Sri Lanka’s political fortunes, but is increasingly distressed at the violent acts consuming the country, perpetrated by her newfound colleagues. She leaves the movement, becomes a reporter, and her fortunes turn worse.

Eventually, she discovers that the Marxist student leader has visited Cambodia, and has set up a massive Sri Lankan secret prison that will contain the residents of Colombo, who will be forced to march in similar fashion to the deadly Khmer-Rouge-led emigration from Phnom Penh. She is eventually imprisoned there.

Sujatha has her own ghosts, deriving from a series of early tragedies in her youth, and driving her sense of independence. As in De Silva’s other books, there is romance here, strained and tortured by the events of the book. Romance, danger, and intrigue drive this book, surrounded by an intelligent, logical plotline that is complex, yet easy to follow.

De Silva didn’t live long enough to complete his fourth book. His death represents a Sri Lankan literary tragedy that is compounded by the fact that unexploded ordinance killed him in a national park (Wilpattu) that felt like home enough for him to stage action there in each of his books. His three books are all worth reading, and Giniralla is a noble back-end to an all-too-short literary career.  Buy it here at the WoWasis eStore.