A political biography in Sinhala, compiled by the veteran writer Nihal Jagathchandra, of the Sri Lankan politician Mangala Samaraweera. The text is in Sinhala throughout, so readers outside Sri Lanka should be clear that reading knowledge of the language is needed.
Jagathchandra's subject is Samaraweera's career in public life, followed across the three decades he spent in politics. Samaraweera was a Matara man by constituency and by origin, and the book takes in that long association along with the parliamentary and ministerial work that followed it.
The launch itself drew attention in the Sri Lankan press. It had first been arranged for Samaraweera's birthday in April, but was postponed after the Easter Sunday attacks and eventually held at the Rabindranath Tagore Auditorium of the University of Ruhuna in Matara. The journalist Victor Ivan delivered the keynote, speaking on thirty years of Sri Lankan politics; Sajith Premadasa and the Tamil National Alliance leader R. Sampanthan were among the others who spoke that day.
For readers who follow recent Sri Lankan political history in Sinhala, this is a single-volume account of one figure's career, written by an author with a long record of work in the language. Godage International Publishers, the Colombo house that issued it, publishes widely in Sinhala across biography, history and general non-fiction.
It will suit readers already familiar with the period and its personalities — the party realignments, the ministries, the southern electoral politics in which Samaraweera's career was rooted — and those building a Sinhala-language shelf on contemporary Sri Lankan public life. Buyers abroad who read Sinhala and track the political literature coming out of Colombo will find it a straightforward addition to that collection.
- Author: Nihal Jagathchandra
- Publisher: Godage International Publishers
- Language: Sinhala
- Pages: 416
- ISBN: 9789553099075
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