Telling the stories of a lost generation
View(s):A 29-year-old Sri Lankan commits suicide in Thailand – agonising news for parents and friends. Two younger men meet with their deaths speeding at 3 a.m. after partying. A mother of another 23-year- old responds “This is a wake-up call to all young people” .
Author Thisuri Wanniarachchi, barely 21, has with deep perception, woven many stories to bring out the tapestry that reveals the tragedy of Colombo’s elitist children in her recently released book Terrorist’s Daughter.
The author
The novel is more than one love story – it speaks of the love of a biological father, of the love of an adoptive father and also the love for justice of another father. There is love between young people and their apparent love for each other and sacrifice. But there is also underlying satire – a fiery young woman who condones with the murderer of her friend because he happens to be ‘one of them’ and does not see justice in the death sentence: She wants it commuted by her boy friend’s father.
The writer’s training in the craft is evident as she moves deftly from one story to another yet links them in an easy and reader -friendly manner. She writes of real situations and emotions and fictionalises them by characterising the protagonists in fictional families.
Army brats being driven by uniformed soldiers, personal bodyguards for politicians’ children, flying across continents to hold the hand of a girlfriend getting an abortion – premarital sex is the norm in practically all of the girl-boy love relationships in this novel. From beginning to end the book reeks of affluent kids and their life styles.
University don Dr Rajiva Wijesinha on reading the manuscript, said at the launch, that , some of the stories were a “a bit over the top” while praising the novel as a whole. But he also went on to say, “Maybe I am ignorant of what is happening” . Those born in the fifties and growing up in the age of socialism and austerity did not have the privileges of those who grew up in the age of capitalism in the affluence of a minority in a war-torn country. While the war wrought much physical and emotional pain countrywide, another generation, however minuscule, grew up throwing aside Sri Lankan values and norms. These are the people aptly depicted in the Terrorist’s Daughter.
Thisuri has not ventured into an alien land. Rather she writes of what she knows and she has captured for the reader very cleverly that underneath the fiction lies a society of young persons who have lost their way.
An excellent thought provoking read which is a “wake up call” – not crying out or whimpering but stating loud and clear – “ Here is a lost generation”.
Book facts
Terrorist’s Daughter, by Thisuri Wanniarachchi. Reviewed by Vijayaluxmi Sivananthan