A blend of travel writing, memoir, history and current affairs that tells the story of Sri Lanka. A perfect read for first-time visitors, Sri Lankans abroad or at home, or anyone looking to deepen their understanding of one of the world’s most fascinating and paradoxical countries. Razeen Sally was born to a Sri Lankan Muslim father and a Welsh mother. Just before his teens, a political conflict tore his family apart and he left Sri Lanka, barely going back for thirty years. When he finally returned ‘home’, he spent much of the next decade crisscrossing the island, trying to understand this paradoxical place. Blessed with nature’s bounty and an easy, pleasure-loving people, it was nevertheless scarred by ethnic conflict and the violence of civil war. As a native and a tourist, Razeen Sally makes an ideal guide to Sri Lanka’s past and present. He won’t tell you which restaurant has the best reviews or the price of a hotel room. Instead, he will accompany you like a learned friend, sharing his journeys, pointing out the unmissable gems beyond the obvious spots, and unpacking the nation’s culture and history. Insightful, intimate and moving, Return to Sri Lanka is an indispensable book, whether you're already familiar with this spectacular country, or planning your first visit.

A Long Watch is the story of the highest-ranking prisoner taken by the Tamil Tigers during Sri Lanka's civil war, a naval officer pulled from a dark ocean after a battle at sea. For eight years Commodore Boyagoda lived at close quarters with his declared enemy, his imprisonment punctuated by extended conversations with his jailers and scratch games of cricket played in jungle clearings. Throughout, he observed his captors and fellow prisoners acutely, and with discreet empathy for the lives of others undone by war. This is a rare first-hand account of a close encounter between the protagonists of the war. Refusing sensationalism, it offers a statement of human complexity amid the polarized narratives of a brutal conflict.

Refugee displacement is a global phenomenon that has uprooted millions of individuals over the past century. In the 1980s, repatriation became the preferred option for resolving the refugee crisis. As human rights achieved global eminence, refugees' right of return fell under its umbrella. Yet return as a right and its practice as a rite created a radical disconnect between principle and everyday practice, and the repatriation of refugees and Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) remains elusive in cases of forced displacement of victims by ethnic conflict. Reviewing cases of ethnic displacement throughout the twentieth century in Europe, Asia, and Africa, Howard Adelman and Elazar Barkan juxtapose the empirical lack of repatriation in cases of ethnic conflict, unless accompanied by coercion. The emphasis on repatriation during the last several decades has obscured other options, leaving refugees to spend years warehoused in camps. Repatriation takes place when identity, defined by ethnicity or religion, is not at the center of the displacing conflict, or when the ethnic group to which the refugees belong are not a minority in their original country or in the region to which they want to return. Rather than perpetuate a ritual belief in return as a right without the prospect of realization, Adelman and Barkan call for solutions that bracket return as a primary focus in cases of ethnic conflict.

"Originally published in Great Britain by Persephone Books"--Title page verso.

A concise and up-to-date history of Sri Lanka, including significant attention to current conflicts.

Stephen Toulmin argues that the potential for reason to improve our lives has been hampered by a serious imbalance in our pursuit of knowledge. The centuries-old dominance of rationality has diminished the value of reasonableness. Toulmin issues a powerful call to redress the balance between rationality and reasonableness.

On the lush coast of Sri Lanka, a talented and beautiful young woman, Nulani, returns day after day to the verandah of a beach house to paint. Her subject is Theo, a writer attempting to heal from a tragic loss and struggling to complete a faltering novel. Just as love blossoms between them, the country is shaken by civil war. Through the years that follow, Nulani and Theo must depend upon their memories and the art that once brought them together to find the strength to face their much changed lives. In a rare and unforgettable work, Roma Tearne captures both the fragility and the endurance of love. The story unfolds in a beguiling landscape as Tearne presents us with the turmoil of the Sri Lankan civil war, told unusually from a woman's point of view.

Since the late 1970s civil war has left Sri Lanka in an almost permanent state of crisis; conventional histories of the country by liberal and Marxist scholars in the last two decades have thus tended to focus on the state’s failure to accommodate the needs and demands of the minorities. The entire history of the twentieth century has been tied to this one key issue. Sri Lanka in the Modern Age offers a fresh perspective based on new research. Above all, the author has written a history of the peoples of Sri Lanka rather than a history of the nation-state.