This debut collection of short stories is the first attempt by Sunila Nanayakkara to gather her fiction writing into a volume. She is a teacher who has been writing poetry as well as short fiction for quite some time. Some of her work has been published in journals and newspapers.
Some of the stories in this collection are autobiographical and a few of them stem mostly from the time she spent in Nigeria and the Seychelles, she says. The first story “Won or Lost” puts together in a neat nutshell the pluses and minuses of mothers leaving young children when they go abroad for long spells to earn, to buy good things for the family, to save for a rainy day, bearing the agony of homesickness and the determination to stick it out “for the sake of the family.”
The author puts her finger deftly on some social ills that haunt most people, especially the elderly. “The Receding Tide” tells the age old story of the ageing mother and the dilemma faced by the devoted son who faces the sad task of leaving her alone when he and his family move away from the home the mother has known all her life. The mother gives in and her spirits slowly wane under the daughter-in-law’s rules in the new home.
An entirely different milieu, all too familiar in today’s world, is the woman who is trapped in the drug business, once again for the sake of the family.
Women are the central players in many of the stories that highlight the social ills of today.
That is not to say that she does not pursue other issues, other avenues. There is Saman who haunts the beaches, gets entangled with a white predator and falls foul of the law, sacrificing his schooling and any future he might have had. There are the dreamers and castlebuilders in the air, those who dream of a life by the sea, the music of the waves lulling them to sleep….
But overall a finger is pointed at the situation of women in today’s society which looks askance at women in many of the aspects of their lives. The author deals with these issues sensitively, in a way that makes the reader think afresh. |
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