Reyna’s Prophecy is the stuff that cult fiction bestsellers are made of
Radhika Philip’s debut novel is everything that you’d want a good read to be, but nothing that a Sri Lanka writer’s book is supposed to be.
Reyna’s Prophecy, a 366 page novel by an unheard of Sri Lankan writer living in Sri Lanka,has all the makings of a paperback bestseller, and Harper Collins, its publisher has already signed her on for the book’s 2nd and 3rd sequels.
The book, however, is not what Sri Lankan writers are expected to write. It makes no pretentions of being “literary”, it doesn’t try to find a “Sri Lankan voice” and makes no excuses for the politically incorrect social layer that the main character belongs to. Yet, its author, in dashing off this over 100,000-word book in five months and securing a commercial publisher even faster, has arrived where most Sri Lankan writers struggle to get to all their lives. She has mastered the art of telling a riveting, unstoppable tale. Reyna’s Prophecy is the stuff that cult fiction bestsellers are made of.
For the first time, a work of fiction from Sri Lanka has married the fantastic, the real and the metaphysical so seamlessly in a story about animals and people, that it reads like a Rudyard Kipling, a Beatrix Potter and an Aldous Huxley all rolled up in one. Kipling and Huxley shout loudest, but really, the book is for anyone who loves the wilderness, and that goes for anyone from a young adult to an adult who secretly hides a child in her heart, waiting to break out. Reyna’s Prophecy offers that break and the chance to drop your guard, put aside daily cares and travel to the magical world of Magenta, the crow, Reyna, the manifestation of an ancient prophecy, and Sri Maximus III,the King of the animal Kingdom.
The book takes you back and forth between the privileged life of a fabulously wealthy and completely Westernised Sri Lankan family, across Blocks 1 and 2 of the Yala national park, into the Kingdom, the heartland of the animal world, where animals wait for Reyna to unite the different species. The book makes no pretensions of being anything but a good read, yet anyone who wants to, could read into it all the metaphors for much that ails this nation and this planet. The author is well aware of all the debates about the industrialised world’s carbon footprints, human-elephant conflicts, the need to create a sustainable world and so on, but has pulled off a book that allows all those debates to ride its back without ruining the story.
Like any book with sequels on their way, Reyna’s Prophecy ends with an unexpected twist.And it leaves you with the one question that every good storyteller worth her salt wants her readers to ask: “what happens next?”
Exclusive excerpt:
In addition to being one of Sri Lanka’s leading international jurists, Araliya Sukhaniya Joseph was a strikingly beautiful woman; a force to be reckoned with in whatever capacity one encountered her. She had returned to the island just the night before Reyna was born.
‘She is pale, although I suppose that is to be expected.’ Araliya rarely wasted time on pleasantries.
‘Hello, Mother.’ Karina smiled happily.
‘What will you name her? She must have one Tamil name, one Christian. That is our custom.’
‘Now, now, Grandma, give these two a few moments to catch their breath.’ Lloyd’s soothing tone caused a brief lull in the conversation.
‘Caw!CAW!’ The windows were open, facing an open corridor with gardens on the other side of it. Perched on the araliya tree just outside was a crow, her sharp eyes glinting as she cocked her head and stared into the room.
Reyna heard it again.
‘Why! Why!’
It would take her many years of study to even attempt to answer that question. For the time being, the baby opened her mouth, stretched her undeveloped vocal chords and shouted back at the top of her tiny lungs:
‘Why!’
Crows are everywhere in Sri Lanka. The smell of food attracts these omnivorous birds. Open garbage skips all over the city draw crows in like magnets. Not everyone knows that crows have a rich cultural heritage of their own. For centuries, they have been considered messengers, able to communicate with many different species of animals, including humans. While religious history has depicted the crow as a conduit of peace, a protector of children and even a carrier of gifts for the departed, few Sri Lankans are concerned about these historical facts. Crows, despite their acknowledged intelligence and historical nobility, are universally disliked and possibly nowhere more so than in this little tropical island. Fortunately, this matters little to the bird itself
This particular crow, the one outside Reyna’s delivery room, was unusual even to her own species. Her name was Magenta and she was just past her teenage years, yet blessed with the wisdom of several reincarnations and a higher calling. Magenta knew before Reyna was even conceived that she would teach this child. She was a cynical crow; she did not expect great success or indeed that she would be able to teach this child to the degree that the scriptures asked of her. When Reyna forced out a strangled little ‘caw’ as her first word on this earth, Magenta screeched and nearly fell off the tree in surprise.
The ‘caw’ of a crow can mean many different things but in general, their call as they fly from one place to another is ‘Why, why, why?’Are they asking to be heard or pointing out the suffering of humanity? These were questions Reyna would later ponder. It took some time before she determined that she was supposed to know the answer and even longer to ascertain how. For the moment, she shouted back.
‘Goodness gracious, the child is already a mimic!’ Magenta exclaimed in shock.
‘Mimic?’ repeated Reyna, although to the human ear, it sounded more like ‘Eek’.
Araliya Joseph peered closely at her new granddaughter. ‘She is trying to speak.’
‘That’s the sound all babies make,’ observed Lloyd mildly.
Outside, Magenta rolled her eyes and shouted for Blackjack.
‘Come here, you great procrastinator; there’s no point hiding in the shade when the Prophecy is revealing itself to be true. Shout at the baby, Blackjack, and see what she makes of you.’
Blackjack, a handsome crow with a broad wingspan and shiny black coat had only joined Magenta’s Order recently. ‘Murder’ is the collective noun for crows but ‘A Murder of Crows’ was as ominous a grouping as there could ever be, and so Magenta preferred to call her disciples an ‘Order’ in the hope of bringing some control to this somewhat undisciplined lot she had chosen as her team. Blackjack flew off his perch inside the large mango tree and joined Magenta on her branch. His role was to keep Magenta alive, so he was technically her bodyguard. Magenta trusted him. She did not always show it, but in the last few months, she had grown almost fond of him. Wherever she travelled, he was a caw-caw away with one beady eye fixed on her, albeit from the shadiest of spots.
Reyna’s Prophecy, published by Harper Collins India,will be launched on February 28 at the Barefoot Garden Café. The book will be on sale at all leading bookshops in Sri Lanka and on Amazon Kindle.