Description
Manuka Wijesinghe is a maverick who has gathered much moss by rolling from one esoteric subject to another. After schooling at CMS Ladies’ College, she learnt German and Spanish; Arabic and Sanskrit; homeopathy and Chinese medicine; wrote poetry and plays; delved into the religions of the world; acted, danced and fell utterly in love with Sufism.
It is her love for Sufi poetry that glows at the heart of ‘Like Moths to a Flame’, her new novel launched yesterday at the Flower Road Vijitha Yapa Bookshop.
Her first book, Monsoons and Potholes, was a hilarious evocation of growing up in the ’60s to the ’80s amidst political calamities of a turbulent nation. Theravada Man was her reaction to rational Buddhism and ‘Sinhala Only’ took on that pivotal 1956 act regarding the national language, which “did not kill English but Sinhala”- estranging the language from its users with ornate ‘Sanskritisation’.
Her new book set against a not very defined period (though ending around the Duraiappah assassination), looks at what led young Tamils to take arms against the state.
It is at the door of the Sinhala state that Manuka leaves the blame.
The novel was born when, nostalgic for a period she knew as a youth when the races lived in amity as one, their diversity like a shared dish on Deepavali day – Manuka began looking for something that could unite all our peoples: in short a god who is loving and understanding- a god with no ‘cultural trappings’ unlike Murugan or Visnu.
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