For example, there is a story in the book about this boy Huckleberry Finn joining a mobile drama group, and the same incident in Madol Duwa is written as a Teeter Drama in the. The work was well received by the English educated people of Sri Lanka. But Martin Wickramasinghe brilliantly adapted the facts of the book written about that environment in that American era to fit the traditional Sinhala environment. Reception Ĭharles Hallisey in Literary Cultures in History: Reconstructions from South Asia states that the narrator is 'a villager, unself-consciously secure in his local experiences of the world to such a degree that by nature he was 'literary'.' '.this villager becomes a tutor to urbanized authors and readers, who must unlearn what they have been taught in school in order to regain the cultural authenticity that survives in the village.' It is seventeen chapters long.Ī young boy growing up in a village in Ceylon and how he deals with rapid economic and social changes that are going on around him. Initially published in 1940, it was translated into English in 1968 as Lay Bare the Roots.
Our Village) is a semi-autobiographical book by Sri Lankan author Martin Wickramasinghe detailing the narrator's experiences as a child in Southern Province, Sri Lanka.