Public Reading and Film Screening
The public reading/film screening takes place at the SLUB Dresden (Klemperer-Saal) on March 10th at 19:30.
We ask those who would like to take part in the public reading, either virtually or in person, to register in advance via e-mail: Registration Public Reading
The flyer to the public reading can be downloaded here.
Abstract
Since the end of the Sri Lankan Civil War in 2009 – a war which caused more than 100.000 casualties and lasted for 26 years – Sri Lanka has been trying to consolidate itself as a nation-state, rebuild its infrastructure and keep its tourism industry going. While its political leaders vehemently deny allegations of war crimes, refuse to deal with the past and try to keep a strong focus on ›progress‹, the cultural imaginary as it manifests in literature, film or interviews with witnesses and survivors, reveals that the experience of a traumatic past takes a heavy toll not only on the present but also on the future of this island nation. As a matter of fact, art can be seen as an important indicator of how a nation deals with its own ›dangerous‹ history.
Award winning authors, journalists and film-makers Minoli Salgado, Samanth Subramanian and Visakesa Chandrasekaram will present excerpts from their work, demonstrating how the traumas of war still determine the present of Sri Lanka’s different ethnic populations, how these traumas are slowly transformed into art and how art, be it literature, film or ›simply‹ storytelling, can help to make the past bearable.
The Authors
Minoli Salgado is a writer and academic and the author of four books that explore the impact of the Sri Lankan Civil War: the critical study, Writing Sri Lanka: Literature, Resistance and the Politics of Place (2007); the novel, A Little Dust on the Eyes (2014); a collection of short stories, Broken Jaw (2019); and a recently published book of narrative non-fiction, Twelve Cries from Home: In Search of Sri Lanka's Disappeared (2022). She is currently working on a Leverhulme-funded project on witness writing from a range of sites including Cambodia and Sri Lanka. She is Professor of International Writing at Manchester Metropolitan University.
Samanth Subramanian is an Indian writer and journalist. His book This Divided Island: Stories from the Sri Lankan War was shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Non-Fiction Prize and the Royal Society of Literature's Ondaatje Prize.
Visakesa Chandrasekaram is a lawyer, academic and an artist. He has made two feature films – Sayapethi Kusuma (Frangipani) and Paangshu (Earth) – which won many local and international awards. He has published two novels – Tigers Don’t Confess and The King and the Assassin. He has written and directed several stage plays including Forbidden Area, which won the Gratiaen Prize. Visakesa has worked in Sri Lanka as a human rights lawyer and in Australia as a consultant to the NSW Government. He currently works as a senior lecturer at the Faculty of Law at the University of Colombo.