Reimagining postcolonial Sri Lanka as 'Ceylon': Shyam Selvadurai's Cinnamon Gardens

This article critically evaluates Sri Lankan Canadian writer Shyam Selvadurai's historical novel Cinnamon Gardens (1998), set in 1927-1928 Ceylon during the Donoughmore Commission's inquiry into possible self-rule for Ceylon. One of Selvadurai's lesser-known works, Cinnamon Gardens actively mimics the tone and content of high realist British texts of the nineteenth century as it depicts the lives of the upper-class Tamil bourgeoisie of Colombo. Focusing on the novel's aesthetic form and portrayal of Ceylon / Sri Lanka, this article investigates Selvadurai's use of postcolonial historical fiction to articulate questions of history and spatial imagination. My analysis of the dimensions of historical fiction as a genre reveals how Selvadurai's self-conscious recasting of British realism emerges as a narrative technique that demonstrates a model of derivative realism and its variegated textures when articulated from the peripheral perspective.

Automated summary

This article critically evaluates Shyam Selvadurai's historical novel Cinnamon Gardens and discusses how it uses postcolonial historical fiction to explore questions of history and spatial imagination.