Terror, Trauma, Transitions: Representing Violence in Sri Lankan Literature

Abstract

Because of Sri Lanka’s 26-year-long ethnic conflict between the Sri Lankan government and militant groups like the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the comparatively brief but bloody conflict between the Sri Lankan government and the Janata Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), violence has occupied an important place in contemporary Sri Lankan literature. This essay surveys the role of violence in contemporary Sri Lanka literature in English, Tamil, and Sinhala, considering the ways in which literature bears witness to violence, mourns violence, protests violence, and calls for and models dialogue and reconciliation.

Keywords

• violence
• terrorism
• war
• memory
• sri lanka
• ethnicity
• literature
• reconciliation