Phoenix: Sri Lanka Journal of English in the Commonwealth XV & XVI (2018 & 2019): 71-79 Beyond Post-Truth: Anuk Arudpragasam’s The Story of a Brief Marriage 1 Senath Walter Perera The manner in which the conflict between the LTTE and the Sri Lankan government has been captured in English fiction by Sri Lankans has not met with universal approval. Ru Freeman for one declares, While Sri Lankans writing in Sinhala and Tamil have long borne nuanced witness to the country’s three decades of civil war, writing in English has been much slower to respond. And too much of it has taken the easy route, giving a foreign readership what it desires: a voyeuristic, and ultimately unengaged, affirmation of what it believes is true of savage peoples in other countries. 2 Although her review of Anuk Arudpragasam’s The Story of a Brief Marriage 3 that follows is excellent, these preliminary remarks on Sri Lankan Writing in English are clearly over-the- top, or at best sweeping generalizations. Ambalavaner Sivanandan’s When Memory Dies and Nihal de Silva’s The Road from Elephant Pass are just two works that are “nuanced” in their approach to the conflict and the communities involved. However, it is true that with the passage of time, a certain predictability or pattern was discernible especially in the handling of situation, scene and issues. Descriptions of mangled bodies, the mentality of suicide bombers, the devastation inflicted on border villages, disruptions to life in towns, the cult of leadership, the plight of disabled combatants, the political chicanery and religious bellicosity which perpetuated the conflict, and attempts at effecting reconciliation among communities are just some of the concerns that emerged with almost monotonous regularity. 4 While 1 This is an expanded version of a paper I presented at the IACLALS Conference in Pondicherry in February 2019. 2 Ru Freeman also takes the “easy route” by not naming any of the Sinhala and Tamil write rs she admires for their nuanced portrayals of the war or the Sri Lankan writers in English who fail to do so. Read Sumathy Sivamohan, “Man Waves: Militarization, Cultural Subjectivity and Subjecthood.” LST Review (2016) and M.A. Nuhman, “Ethnic Conflict And Literary Perception: Tamil Poetry In Post- Colonial Sri Lanka” Colombo Telegraph. 19 August (2019) 2012. https://www.colombotelegraph.com/index.php/ethnic-conflict-and-literary-perception-tamil-poetry-in- post-colonial-sri-lanka for references to creative work in Tamil that is one-sided. Amarakeerthi Liyanage contends in a personal communication that Gunadasa Amarasekara's Dhathusena (Boralesgamuwa: Visidunu, 2017) indirectly and Jayantha Chandrasiri's Maharaja Gemunu (Bolaresgamuwa: Visidunu 2015) directly justify war. The latter was also made into a successful film. Liyanage confirms, however, that there are several novels written in Sinhala that provide nuanced accounts of the conflict. 3 Hereinafter referred to as The Story. 4 See for instance Nayomi Munaweera, Island of a Thousand Mirrors (Colombo: Perera-Hussein 2012); Punyakante Wijenaike, An Enemy Within (Colombo: Sarvodaya Vishva Lekha, 1998); Neil Fernandopulle, Shrapnel (Nugegoda: Sarasavi, 2000) and Jean Arasanayagam, In the Garden Secretly (ND: Penguin 2000).