Metallic Modern

Metallic Modern
Author: Nira Wickramasinghe
Publisher: Berghahn Books
Total Pages: 191
Release: 2014-01-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 1782382437

Everyday life in the Crown colony of Ceylon (Sri Lanka) was characterized by a direct encounter of people with modernity through the consumption and use of foreign machines – in particular, the Singer sewing machine, but also the gramophone, tramway, bicycle and varieties of industrial equipment. The ‘metallic modern’ of the 19th and early 20th century Ceylon encompassed multiple worlds of belonging and imagination; and enabled diverse conceptions of time to coexist through encounters with Siam, the United States and Japan as well as a new conception of urban space in Colombo. Metallic Modern describes the modern as it was lived and experienced by non-elite groups – tailors, seamstresses, shopkeepers, workers – and suggests that their idea of the modern was nurtured by a changing material world.

Ryan and Ceylon: a Deceitful Love Story

Ryan and Ceylon: a Deceitful Love Story
Author: Neyrey
Publisher:
Total Pages: 328
Release: 2019-03-04
Genre:
ISBN: 9781091321656

Ryan Moreau, is an ambitious law student from South Baton Rouge, Louisiana. She grew up in her over crowded family home with her crazy Granny G. Ryan becomes a statistic after giving birth to her son Aasen at only sixteen years old. She takes the path she made in stride, breaking stereotypes of the path everyone predicts she'll take. With support from her loved one's and her best friend Ceylon, Ryan is shaking up her path. Ceylon Gautier is a gang banger turned business man after his school gives a test created by Mensa. Once Ceylon's IQ is discovered his life takes on a new meaning. He develops software programs and even has his own technology line. Making him a twenty-four year old African American billionaire. But all though he's taken out of his unfortunate situation he remains true to the game while trying to balance the two lifestyles and keep them completely separated. Ceylon and Ryan are forced to take two different paths as Ryan's life is constantly trying to pull her into the hood while Ceylon's life is soaring in a different direction. What started off as a platonic friendship, turns them into enemies of every love interest the other brings around. Will the lies that have helped them maintain their friendship and lifestyles break them apart once all is brought to the light?

An Historical Relation of the Island Ceylon, in the East-Indies

An Historical Relation of the Island Ceylon, in the East-Indies
Author: Robert Knox
Publisher:
Total Pages: 257
Release: 1681
Genre: British
ISBN:

Robert Knox was travelling with his father in 1659 on the latter's journey homeward from his post with the British East India Company at Fort St. George when a storm obliged their ship to put into Cottier Bay, Ceylon. The two were detained as prisoners along with 14 others, and carried into the interior of the island. Knox's father died in 1661, but Knox himself remained a prisoner at large for over 19 years, supporting himself by knitting caps, lending out corn and rice, and hawking goods about the country. Though the rajah pressed him to enter his service, Knox resisted, and finally escaped to the Dutch settlement at Arippu on the north-west of the island. Reaching England in 1680, he entrusted the manuscript of this account to Robert Hooke, and enlisted in the East India Company, for further adventures in an already adventuresome life. These engravings include depictions of agricultural techniques, two native primates, customs and costumes and an execution being carried out by an elephant.

Romantic Ceylon

Romantic Ceylon
Author: Ralph Henry Bassett
Publisher: Asian Educational Services
Total Pages: 332
Release: 1997
Genre: History
ISBN: 9788120612747

Its History, Legend And Story. Drawings By Kathleen Murdoch And E J Laws.

Cinnamon Gardens

Cinnamon Gardens
Author: Shyam Selvadurai
Publisher: Emblem Editions
Total Pages: 402
Release: 2012-12-04
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1551997185

Set in 1920s’ Ceylon, during the turbulent closing days of colonial rule, this evocative story of intertwined lives takes us behind the fragrant gardens and polished surfaces of the elite who reside in a wealthy suburb of Colombo to reveal a world of splintered families, conflicted passions, and lives destroyed by class hatred. Annalukshmi, a spirited young schoolteacher, finds herself caught between her family’s pressures to marry and her own desire for a more independent life. Then there is her uncle Balendran, whose comfortable life of privilege is rocked by the arrival of Richard, a lover from his past. Their uneasy reunion re-ignites tensions with Balendran’s powerful father, and threatens all on which Balendran has built his present life. Sensual, perceptive, and wise, Cinnamon Gardens is a novel of exceptional achievement—an exquisite tapestry of lives.

Running in the Family

Running in the Family
Author: Michael Ondaatje
Publisher: Vintage
Total Pages: 198
Release: 2011-03-23
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0307776646

In the late 1970s Ondaatje returned to his native island of Sri Lanka. As he records his journey through the drug-like heat and intoxicating fragrances of that "pendant off the ear of India, " Ondaatje simultaneously retraces the baroque mythology of his Dutch-Ceylonese family. An inspired travel narrative and family memoir by an exceptional writer.

Colombo Heat

Colombo Heat
Author: Christopher Hudson
Publisher:
Total Pages: 330
Release: 1987
Genre:
ISBN: 9780330299961