Burning Woman

About the Book

THIS FASCINATING NEW NOVEL ALLUDES TO THE ANCIENT HINDU CUSTOM OF SELF-IMMOLATION, FORCING WIDOWS TO JUMP INTO THEIR DEAD HUSBANDS FUNERAL PYRE. "A must read!" The New York Review of Books Leela, the young heroine of this poignant tale faces a similar fate. Set against the last days of the British rule on the island of Sri Lanka, cousins Mano and Leela are bound together in an arranged marriage. Both are deeply distraught over this age-old tradition, yet still in an effort to please their families and not yet prepared to defy custom, Mano and Leela marry. Mano chronicles the events surrounding their wedding and their marriage, which play out in an up country village and at a nearby British run tea estate. The drama of their marrige intensifies amid the political chaos that surrounds the final days of the colonial rule. Their heartbreaking story is told in a narrative style rich in moods and imagery, as much as psychological insight.Leela struggles to live up to her new role as a wife, and Mano faces every day with a deeply heavy heart as a husband to a woman he did not choose. Unable to find love or intimacy, Leela and Mano drift into seperate worlds. Just as the fate of the island seems to teeter in precarious balance, likewise, the fate of young Mano and Leela´s lives hangs by a fraying thread.

About the Author

Chandra Perera was born in Sri Lanka and educated in Japan and in US. He is the author of three novels, two screenplays, and a prose poem about the life of Buddha as a young man. He is currently working on a novel based on the Pacific Northwest. He lives in Seattle, Washington.