‘Ranvali’ by Romesh Gunesekera is a story that captures, in lush detailed prose the romance of the rural landscape and old dilapidated country houses in Sri Lanka. A daughter is driving down to her late-father’s beach bungalow and reflects on his misplaced idealism and efforts to create a more unified country, giving away his valuable land for strangers to gather in, a project doomed to fail.
“For father the gama was his precious link to the peasants, his masses, even though they treated him like a lord. They brought him pineapple and jak fruit, plantains, jaggery and curd while he sat on the veranda… looking more like Tolstoy than his Lenin.”
First published in Monkfish Moon, Granta, 1992
A Personal Anthology 