Poetry
සුදෝ සුදු
Not translated into English
Sagara Palansuriya · 1945
Synopsis
In a Sinhalese village, Heenmenika, a poor girl, is courted by Tikiri, a boy from a well-off family, but she prefers Adiri, an orphan as poor as she is. The poem follows this love triangle, then the life of the young couple, who are overtaken by hardship as the crops yield less and money runs short.
Context
The first narrative poem by its author, the book transposes to the Sinhalese countryside the subject of a nineteenth-century English poem, Enoch Arden. It has 136 stanzas. The author belongs to the school of poetry known as the Colombo school, turned towards pastoral subjects. Read by a whole generation in the last years of the 1940s, the book then remained out of print for a long time; it was made into a film in 1965, then into a television serial by Parakrama Niriella in 1999.
Who it is for
A narrative poem in simple Sinhala, of 136 stanzas, with no French or English translation.
Prizes and reception
Praised for the simplicity of its language and the tender grace of its subject; counted among its author's best works.