This classic novel of colonial Ceylon (Sri Lanka), was first published in 1913 a
nd is written by a prominent member of the Bloomsbury group, husband of Virginia
Woolf. It reads as if Thomas Hardy had been born among the heat, scent, sensual
ity and pungent mystery of the tropics. Translated into both Tamil and Sinhalese
, it is one of the best-loved and best-known stories in Sri Lanka.
It include
s a new biographical afterword by Sir Christopher Ondaatje, author of "Woolf in
Ceylon", and a short story, "Pearls before Swine", which vividly draws on Woolf'
s experience as a young District Commissioner. This book reeks of first-hand kno
wledge of the colonial experience, and of its profound, malign disregard for the
psychology and culture of its subject peoples.
