But even as there is synthesis, for the son, Michael by name in the poem Connections, home is not the home of Sri Lankan cousins. Instead Home is where the snowman sits on the front lawn and waits patiently for his return. This is a wholly new way of looking at mother tongues, one that doesn t have the sanction of genealogy, of phylogenesis. And one that diasporas find difficult to come to terms with. Difficult, unresolvable questions all, but with powerful political implications nevertheless.
Cultural theory demands answers, or at least an engagement with the issues.
The final collection under review is Suwanda Sugunasiri's first volume of verse written in English. An accomplished writer in Singhalese and a well-known critic and commentator, Sugunasiri's English poems had so far been restricted to journals and newspapers. The Faces of Galle Face Green. And this makes good sense as Sugunasiri recalls the recent, highly divisive, history of his homeland Sri Lanka. There is much less of the diasporic in his verse and much more of a straight out pleading for common sense and non-violence.