“Eastbound” by Ruwan Bandujeewa

First published in The Los Angeles Review Online, July 2020

Toward the middle of the cigarette, my thoughts turned semicircular and started heading eastward, completely defying my expectations. So now, they must travel through the central hills, through the fog. Because she is inside the fog, they will also have to travel through her in a moment. But they did not.

It was when I got a phone call.

“My friend, Wind is sick.”

After every burn, at least a pinch of tobacco gets to wander in the air, free from this unremitting production process. When no one takes the state-regulated health warning seriously, the tobacco falls in love with the lips, the owner of that anarchist warmth. Abandoning not a single speck of ash or a single ring of smoke forsaken by joy, Wind accompanies them when no one else does. How come this dear Wind is now sick?
Read the full piece on The Los Angeles Review Online

Listen to the Sinhalese text read by Nipuni Sharada

Listen to the English translation read by Alecs Mickunas

Why Sri Lankan Literature Matters?

“Even within South Asia, Sri Lanka occupies a minority state in terms of both its geography and population. From a translator’s perspective, I couldn’t help but notice that the rate of Sri Lankan contemporary literature that is being circulated (in translation or in the original language/s) and read around the world is comparably lower than the national literatures of many other countries. It is also studied and anthologized much less often than other national literatures of the world. We talk about the infamous “3% factor” of annual literary translation publications in the US, but we’ve hardly ever seen or heard about a translation from the Sinhalese making it to the languages that contribute to that percentage, right”

-Interview with Project Plume