There is political outrage inherent in Anil's Ghost , but no simplistic denunciation or accusation. One victim can speak for many victims. That Anil has also participated in human rights investigations in Guatemala and China, and refers to rights violations in such locations as the Congo, suggests that one country might speak for many countries as well. Just as political positions are blurred in this novel, so are notions of truth. Early on, Anil realizes that the factual certainties she'd come to depend upon in the West don't exist in the same way in the East.
Fear contaminates truth, and renders it slippery and evasive.
One appealing character in this work, Palipana, allows Ondaatje to toy with what's true. Familiar with languages, steeped in texts, intimate with hieroglyphics, Palipana had simply made links and speculated on facts and created a new mythology of his own. He applied imagination to fact. Ananda the artificer. In Ananda are embodied the tragedies of Sri Lanka.