A chronicle of life on the resplendent island, combining the
immediacy of memoir with the vividness of travelogue and
reportage
Adele Barker and her son, Noah, settled into the central
highlands of Sri Lanka for an eighteen-month sojourn, immersing
themselves in the customs, cultures, and landscapes of the
island—its elephants, birds, and monkeys; its hot curries and sweet
mangoes; the cacophony of its markets; the resonant evening chants
from its temples. They hear stories of the island’s colorful past
and its twenty-five-year civil war between the Sinhalese majority
and the Tamil Tigers. When, having returned home to Tucson, Barker
awakes on December 26, 2004, to see televised images of the
island’s southern shore disappearing into the ocean, she decides
she must go back. Traveling from the southernmost coasts to the
farthest outposts of the Tamil north, she witnesses the ravages of
the tsunami that killed forty-eight thousand Sri Lankans in the
space of twenty minutes, and reports from the ground on the
triumphs and failures of relief efforts. Combining the immediacy of
memoir and the vividness of travelogue with the insight of the best
reportage, Not Quite Paradise chronicles life in a place few have
ever visited.--From the Trade Paperback edition.
關於作者:
Adele Barker, who was awarded a Ucross Fellowship for her work
on this book, is the author or editor of five books on Russian
literature and cultural life. Most recently, she received a
Fulbright Senior Scholar grant to teach and write in Sri
Lanka.--From the Trade Paperback edition.