Tamil writer in Denmark

K S Sivakumaran

This work is a fine illustration of ‘Literatures in English’ although it is a translation of a work in Danish translated into Tamil and from there to English. The translation is by Jeevakumaran whose spouse was the original writer who wrote in the Danish language.

It’s a fine contemporary exercise in fiction writing but authentic with real incidents in life encountered during the last half century in blessed Sri Lanka, particularly among the Tamils living in Jaffna.

This is a story of a 90-year old Tamil woman living in Denmark narrated by her in first person singular mode primarily on the loss of her son in the horrendous war in the Tamil-speaking areas of the Island Nation in the Indian Ocean – Sri Lanka for more than three decades.

The technique employed includes the Stream of Consciousness style of writing which facilitates to go from present to the past and back again. The work is full of allusions and the renderings of the Tamil idioms which would seem to the foreign reader very innovative in creative writing. So, one would read this work as not as’ English-English Writing’ but rich ‘Literature in English’ from the East of the World.

Stream of Consciousness

The novel gives the impression that the mother is writing letters to her son to which there is no reply and she writes daily and imagines her epistles have reached him and again interspersed with happening and dialogues with others in Denmark. It’s a technique that facilitates smooth understanding of the content. Apart from the structure of the novel what would perhaps move the reader is the poignant portrayal of the crudities and suffering of the war and the resultant loss of life and properties and eventual stage of landlessness of the people that consider themselves as strangers in their own native land.

Immediate environs

The first chapter begins with a monologue of an old lady in an Elders’ Home in Denmark. She has an imaginary dialogue with her son Hari who is believed to have been killed. At the same time dialogues with others in the immediate environment are also included. The lady’s name is believed to be Yaso.

The second chapter titled ‘Hari Appeared in My Dream’ recounts both the past and the present. ‘Like bathing in the cool water from the well’ is a simile that the western reader might find exotic. To me this chapter is full of beautiful writing encompassing the theme of love and great values.

‘That Red Suitcase’, the third chapter, relates the remembrances of her past in losing her beloved son in the onslaught set upon by the vicious criminals in the process of the burning of the library. I do not want to comment on the rest of the chapters for it would prevent the readers enjoying the book leave alone in understanding the agony and the anguish the people got caught in the protracted war between the militant movements and in particular the Tigers and the state government’s armed forces. This novel is a saga of what happened to sections of the people in Lanka written with sincerity and nostalgia. It is both a biography of Hari and an autobiography of Yaso.