Narratives of Conciliation: Post-war Sri Lankan Literature in English

• Applicant: Birte Heidemann-Malreddy, Ph.D.
• Subject Area: General and Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies
• Term: Funded in 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 491172166

This project explores the cultural politics of reconciliation in post-war Sri Lanka since the ending of the three decades long civil war between the Army and the insurgents of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in May 2009. The project seizes upon an emergent corpus of Anglophone literature by resident and diasporic writers – novels, autobiographies and narrative journalism – that concerns with an ethical imperative of storytelling in the aftermath of war. A major contribution of this research thus lies with its move towards translating the transitional justice paradigm – one of the most pressing issues in Sri Lanka at present – from the political to the cultural domain. As such, the project conceives this body of writing as ‘narratives of conciliation’ wherein attempts at mutual agreement, often touted as prerequisites for sustained reconciliation, may be rehearsed in the muted but pervasive undertones of narrative interventions. If one considers the country’s complex legacy of colonisation by three empires and the ensuing ethnic conflict, a return to a status quo ante, the project suggests, is inadequate, if not unattainable. Instead, it locates the literary category of ‘conciliation’ in the works of select Sri Lankan theorists on religious nationalism, authenticity, and secular criticism, in conjunction with the postcolonial theorist Edward Said’s thesis on contrapuntality.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants