The Moonemalle Inheritance to launch at ICC

The Indian Cultural Centre (ICC) will host the launch of The Moonemalle Inheritance by Rajiva Wijesinha on April 23 at 6 pm. Published in honour of Ena de Silva for her 90th birthday, the book consists of memoirs and also fiction based on characters and situations recorded from a different perspective in the memoirs. The launch will be held at the ICC auditorium located at 16/2, Gregory’s Road, Colombo 7.

The Chief Guest will be Yasmine Gooneratne, whose ‘Relative Merits’ provided inspiration for the idea of presenting social change through the history of a family. Channa Daswatte, of Geoffrey Bawa Associates, will also speak, in appreciation of Ena de Silva’s seminal contribution to Sri Lankan design. Her latest mural, an imaginative excursus on the Taj Mahal and its never completed black twin, adorns the entrance of the ICC.

The book launch will be accompanied by an exhibition of photographs representing the writer’s personal odyssey over the last few years. It covers much travel in Sri Lanka and abroad but is organised in terms, not of places, but of subject areas. These comprise Sun and Sky, Water, Earth, Rocks and Trees, the Arts and People and Animals.

The first section of the book describes the progeny of John Marcellus Lewis Moonmalle, great grand father of Ena de Silva, and great great grandfather of the writer. It deals largely with those who grew up in ‘The Old Place’ the house in Kurunegala of John Marcellus’ daughter Ada and her husband Edward Goonewardene. Their grand-daughter Lakshmi lived all alone in the house for nearly two decades before the place was finally sold.

The second section describes ‘Travels with Ena,’explorations of different parts of Sri Lanka, with ventures too in India and in China.

The fiction in the last section includes chapters from Servants, which won the Gratiaen Award for 1995, and from ‘Acts of Faith’ and ‘Days of Despair,’which deal with ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka in the eighties.

Proceeds from the sale of photographs will be donated to the Vocational Training Centres run by Aide et Action in the Mullaitivu District and planned in Kilinochchi.

All are welcome.

For further details please contact the ICC on telephone no: 2684698 and Email: [email protected].