'The Garland of Fate' book launch

The Garland of Fate, the first novel by Ruana Rajapakse will be launched today (13) at Holiday Inn at 5.30 p.m. The book is published by Vijitha Yapa Publications. The story is based on an incident from the Kanevera Jataka and characters and incidents have been added to evoke a complex society that appreciated beauty, poetry and philosophy, while also knowing poverty, banditry and superstition. Many characters and incidents have been added so as to take in a broad sweep of ancient Indian society from Benares to Taxila.

Economic circumstances cause the two daughters of a small-time farmer to be assigned two very different roles: the elder being given in marriage to an ambitious, social climbing merchant, while the younger girl is sold as an apprentice to a wealthy city courtesan, whose role she eventually inherits. Meanwhile a young man from a good family falls in with a gang of bandits, is captured and paraded through the streets of the city prior to execution. The younger of the two sisters decides to save him and thereby sets in motion a chain of events that dramatically impacts on the lives of all the characters.

At one level the book is a tale of adventure, love, betrayal and mistrust, while at another level, it examines social attitudes towards the two contrasting faces of woman, portrayed by the courtesan on the one hand, and the wife and eventual widow of the man whose death she causes. There is added poignancy because the two women are sisters, whose respective roles in life were chosen for them by their parents. Other issues that feature in the book include the role of astrology and superstition in shaping people's lives and the way society treats those who deviate from the roles expected of them.

Ruana Rajepakse is a lawyer by profession and the author of two professional books. An Introduction to Law in Sri Lanka and A Guide to Current Constitutional Issues in Sri Lanka. Her previous forays into creative writing were focused on the stage and included a 'Colombo' version of R. B. Sheridan's School for Scandal and the one-act play All in a Day's Work which won the prize for the English Association of Sri Lanka Creative Writing Competition for 1997. Her first play War Story set in the Kotte period showed an inclination for historical research which is morefully displayed in The Garland of Fate.