Sri Lanka
What a carve up! The British flair for disastrous partition
The ‘Great Partition’ of India in 1947 led to the wider division of Britain’s ‘empire within an empire’ – and to most of the problems plaguing southern Asia today
A novel in disguise: Theory & Practice, by Michelle de Kretser, reviewed
De Kretser’s witty, innovative take on the immigrant’s predicament tries ingeniously to persuade us that we are not reading fiction but documentary truth
Terrorist friends and relatives
When a Sri Lankan medical student finds her brothers joining the Tamil Tigers, she is caught in a tangle of commitments to family, friends, homeland and vocation
The mutterings of the dead
Ten years ago Shehan Karunatilaka’s first novel, Chinaman, was published and I raved about it, as did many others. Set…
Sri Lanka’s descent into chaos
Colombo, Sri Lanka Some 13 years after the end of a civil war that saw 100,000 deaths, Sri Lanka is…
Climbing the walls
How to scale a mountain without leaving home
Why do we still use the Qwerty keyboard layout and not Dvorak?
‘Can you fly down this evening?’ she was asked by her boss in the Delhi office of the BBC. ‘Yes,…
How not to fight a war on terror
It has become commonplace to describe terror attacks as ‘senseless’. The horrific Easter Sunday bombings in Sri Lanka, which cost…
Portrait of the week: A plot to oust May, terror in Sri Lanka and Ukraine’s comedy president
Home Theresa May, the Prime Minister, returned to parliament after the Easter recess to find backbenchers plotting to get rid…
Our churches aren’t perfect, but if we lose them we will all be worse off
After hearing about the massacre in Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday, I went to church, happily sang the word God…
Meet India’s first – and only – professional western orchestra
It’s a 31ºC Mumbai morning, and on Marine Drive the Russian winter is closing in. The Symphony Orchestra of India…
Talksport, cricket’s new radio stars
‘And I need a wee,’ said the former England fast–bowling legend Darren Gough, as tension built up during the Sri…
When will the West take a stand on the persecution of Muslims?
Anti-Christian persecution, for so long a great untold story, has started to gain the world’s attention. But the suffering of…
My Sri Lankan stroke: how a book festival turned into a horror story
This time last year, it seemed that life couldn’t get much better for me: I had a new book out…
Michelle de Kretser: the modern Australian Jane Austen
Twenty-odd pages into Michelle de Kretser’s The Life to Come, I pounded the table and bellowed an Australian-accented ‘fuck yeah!’…
Bitter sweet
The French master film-maker Jacques Audiard has never been anywhere near Hollywood plot school. His films contain gathering menace —…
Reasons to be cheerful, parts one, two, three…
Well the sun is out, the sky is blue, and poor Boris Johnson is taking such a pounding from Matthew…
Sri Lanka makes me yearn to be a pre-war tea planter
James Delingpole tastes bliss in the steamy heat
I’ve never thought much of John Lennon’s music – until now
It’s probably blasphemous to admit that I’ve never thought very much of John Lennon’s music. Common sense tells me it…
A twinge of fear, and a glimpse of a harsher world
I celebrated Eid in a sandy bay in Sri Lanka, watching from the warm, shallow sea as gaggles of local…
Diary
Just back from Sri Lanka, a place I first went to in 1981. It was then a dreamy island. I…
Scars of Sri Lanka
‘The first night I stayed in Kilinochchi, I was a little apprehensive,’ admits the usually cool-headed Vasantha, van-driver and narrator…
Sri Lanka: High tea in the Hill Country
Alex Massie relaxes amid lush lawns and eccentricity
Portrait of the week
Home The government announced proposals for the National Health Service, including a law to criminalise wilful neglect by doctors and…
