Harper’s Bazaar voted it ‘No. 1 Literary Festival in the world’. The Guardian included it amongst its top ten winter breaks of last year. So does the Galle Literary Festival live up to its hype? For those easily seduced by paradise isles and exotic stories, there can only be one answer.

Never judge a book by its cover. Except when the cover is this dazzling. The setting is the seaside town of Galle, Sri Lanka, cradled in a colonial fort and surrounded by glorious beaches, luxury villas, ornate temples, mosques, and wonderful museums.

For the last four years, writers, musicians, artists, and literary pilgrims have flocked here by the thousand. Many enjoy the historical walks, the poetry lunches, the drama workshops, and the lively talks delivered by the likes of Gore Vidal, Vikram Seth, Thomas Keneally, Germaine Greer, and Alexander McCall Smith.

The festival’s aims are simple. Celebrate the written word. Encourage local writers. Exchange ideas. Have fun. While Rushdie, Roy, and now Adiga have firmly marked India’s presence on the literary landscape, Sri Lanka has only just begun to emerge from the shadows of this giant. Expatriate Sri Lankans like Michael Ondaatje and Romesh Gunasekera have enjoyed widespread acclaim, but other homegrown writers are also beginning to explore the abundance of stories surrounding them.

The Galle Literary Festival brings together many voices. This year’s participants include Ian Rankin, Michael Frayn, Louise Doherty, Claire Tomalin, and a host of scribes from the region. It promises five days of conversation, debate, and literary feasting in and around the historic fort of Galle. The programme will cover everything from detective fiction to comic books to conspiracy theories. There’s even room for musical interludes, fringe theatre, and children’s activities such as treasure hunts and kite-making.

If you’d like to explore Sri Lanka’s south, there are whale-watching excursions and rainforest walks. or if you want to engage with the local community, Adopt Sri Lanka Foundation conducts charity programmes with the local children.

So does the Galle Lit Fest live up to the hype? Why not visit the seaside from January 27 to 31 and find out? Don’t forget to pack a few good books.

www.galleliteraryfestival.com

The Author

Shehan Karunatilaka began life as an advertising writer and has spent recent years travelling Sri Lanka, writing stories about its myths, legends, and myriad sights. His novel Chinaman: The Legend of Pradeep Mathew won the 2008 Gratiaen Award and is currently being edited for publication. It deals with a drunken sportswriter and his quest to find the forgotten genius of Sri Lankan cricket, and was described by the Gratiaen judges as ‘witty and thought-provoking and rooted in an entirely authentic Sri Lankan milieu’. Karunatilaka’s short story Veysee is due to be anthologised in a collection of Sri Lankan writing. His writings can be found at www.shehanwriter.com.

Fiction

Monkfish Moon
By Romesh Gunasekera

Acclaimed author of The Match, The Sandglass, and the Booker-shortlisted Reef, Romesh Gunasekera’s debut short story collection remains his most subversive and most graceful work. These nine stories capture the tropical lushness of Sri Lanka while depicting the violence and barbarism that lurks beneath the veil. As Vogue magazine writes, it is ‘full of the uncertain sadness of exiles and dreamers...with characters that become memorable emblems of solitude and despair...’
The New Press.

The Founts of Sinhala
By Colin de Silva

Colin de Silva’s weighty historical sagas may not receive the press of more recent Sri Lankan writing, but are nevertheless essential parts of the island’s literary canon. Inspired by ancient Ceylon’s well-documented 2,000-year past, de Silva weaves epic sagas of kings, battles, and intrigues. This novel charts the arrival of the hedonistic King Vijaya from India and the beginning of the Sinhalese race, and was an international best-seller in the 1980s.
Granada Publishing.

Nothing Prepares You
By Vivimarie VanderPoorten

This slim volume of evocative poetry is dark, heartbreaking, and haunting. VanderPoorten’s language is simple and precise, and her deft blend of beauty and pathos has seen her emerge as one of Sri Lanka’s most compelling new voices. Winner of the 2007 Gratiaen prize, Vivimarie teaches Economics at the University of Kelaniya, and English language, literature and linguistics at the Open University of Sri Lanka.
Inscript (Pvt) Ltd.

Running in the Family
By Michael Ondaatje

The Sri Lankan-born Canadian winner of the Booker prize for 1992 novel The English Patient revisits his childhood in post-independent Ceylon. Its lucid prose and vivid imagery mixes anecdote with memoir and also features some of Ondaatje’s celebrated poetry. The result is a post-modern portrait that explores the unreliable nature of the family story. As Ondaatje writes, ‘In Sri Lanka a well-told lie is worth a thousand facts.’
Random House.

The Road from Elephant Pass
By Nihal de Silva

Along with David Blacker’s A Cause Untrue and Jeanne Cambrai’s Murder in the Pettah, de Silva’s debut novel marked the emergence of a pulp tradition in Sri Lankan writing. This page-turner charts the adventures of a Sri Lankan soldier and a Tamil woman through Sri Lanka’s LTTE-controlled North. The book won the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and the Gratiaen Prize, and has recently been turned into a successful motion picture.
Vijitha Yapa Publications.

The Jam Fruit Tree
By Carl Muller

Winner of the first Gratiaen Prize in 1993, Muller’s bawdy tale of the drunken, foul-mouthed, Von Bloss family has spawned four sequels and a host of imitators. Rightly seen as a pioneering work in the new wave of Sri Lankan writing, it has helped establish Sri Lankan English as a legitimate form of expression and continues to entertain, provoke, and compel.
PENGUIN.

The Hamilton Case
By Michelle De Kretser

On the surface, a bewitching detective story in the tradition of Wilkie Collins, Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie, The Hamilton Case is also a rich character study and an insightful critique of the colonial mentality. The writing delights and charms, while the artfully-constructed plot was hailed by The Independent as ‘a captivating blend of intellectual muscle and storytelling magic’.
Random House.

Colpetty People
By Ashok Ferrey

A live-wire behind the Galle Literary Festival, Ashok Ferrey has seen his collection of comic tales enjoy widespread popularity. Ferrey’s stories of love, life, and exiled Sri Lankans are peppered with satire, wit, and eccentric characters, written with verve and packed with insight and hilarious one-liners. Also read his 2006 novel, The Good Little Ceylonese Girl.
PERERA HUSSEIN.

Special Selection

Sri Lanka: A Personal Odyssey
By Nihal Fernando

This elegant coffee table collection is the culmination of 40 years quiet exploration. Fernando has travelled the length and breadth of Sri Lanka, camera in hand, and has captured the colours, textures, contours and contrasts of the island.

Compiled over a lifetime, this collection captures Sri Lanka’s sensuality and innocence while also portraying a disturbing vision of a disintegrating paradise. Glossed with beautiful quotes from famous visitors to Sri Lanka like Pablo Neruda, Marco Polo, and D.H. Lawrence, this is the enduring work of a true artist. Viator.