Amila Weerasinghe grew up in the suburbs of Colombo in the 1960s and had a really happy and peaceful childhood.
She recalled how the whole neighbourhood felt like one big playground. “We felt very safe. Everyone trusted everybody else unlike today,” she said, adding, “We didn’t know who was Sinhala, Burgher, Tamil or Muslim – all the children would play cricket and play house together.”
Amila is the author of the book ‘Ten Thousand Naked Eye Stars’ published by The Jam Fruit Tree Publications, which recounts a tragic story woven around the harrowing events of the Sri Lankan civil war spanning the 1970s, 80s and 90s.
To Amila, the first sign of violence was the 1971 JVP insurrection which came as a real shock to her. Suddenly there were curfews all day and they had to stay home from school for months at a time.
“It was as if a black shadow fell across paradise,” Amila said. But after the insurgency was brought under control, another shadow crept into their lives. Amila was just out of university in 1983 when racism started to raise its ugly head. She was again incredibly shocked because this was not what she had been accustomed to, and the concept of racism itself felt foreign to her.
News came in saying that cars were being burnt and houses destroyed, and it was like a massive blow to her head that she had never experienced before. The author mentioned how her heart broke to see the devastation caused by mobs roaming Colombo neighbourhoods during that terrible week.
Civil war
She simply couldn’t fathom what happened at the beginning of the civil war. “As someone from that generation who witnessed this taking place, I believe that we shouldn’t sweep these things under the carpet. You cannot go into the future without learning from the past. To prevent racism, we shouldn’t forget that events like this happened. And all this took place in our very recent history.”
Many readers who got back to her after reading ‘Ten Thousand Naked Eye Stars’ confessed that it was a haunting book. The details of the past and the stories that were narrated had a chokehold on the readers.
Amila’s main challenge was to write about 1983. She started writing down her experiences more than twenty years ago, but actually began compiling them into a novel about ten years ago.
“There were so many traumatic situations that happened all at once. Everything became overwhelming and never-ending. A lot of things were falling apart around me while I was writing this and made it difficult to focus only on the civil war,” she said. Procrastination because of the inner resistance she felt about baring her heart and soul was another challenge to the author.
“I’ve wanted to do this for a long time. My publisher was very encouraging and made the publishing process seem very user-friendly which put me at ease,” Amila said.
Amila’s life was directly impacted during the Reign of Terror that prevailed from 1987 to 1990 when a friend of hers was abducted and murdered during this really dark era in Sri Lanka.
“It was a totally traumatic experience for me,” said Amila. “After I finally finished the book, I looked at it and said to myself: Okay, I wrote this because I could NOT write your story – I wrote this for you, my friend.” Thus, handing in the completed manuscript to the publisher was a moment of victory and justice for her.
The author also wants this book to be on the shelves of the younger generation of this country so that they would not forget the dark times we left behind. She mentioned how she greatly appreciated the younger generation in this country because they seemed to be so open minded and inclusive, and how they – including her own children, nieces and nephews – forged close friendships across racial and religious boundaries.
Dark history
She hopes that the younger generation will read this book and remember the dark history of this nation, however painful it is. “I trust and hope that they will read about what happened and make sure that it will never happen again,” said Amila.
Amila’s literary journey kick-started as an avid reader in her childhood. Even as a small child, every time she went out with her parents and while she was walking down the street, she would read all the name boards of the shops out loud.
She loved the sound of words. It was words that spoke to her. It was not music, or pictures, or numbers – it was always words that helped her to make sense of the world.
“That’s why even at the book launch, I asked my friend to start the event by singing the last verse of the song, ‘Words’ by the Bee Gees,” she said.
As a child, Amila started reading voraciously and finished every Enid Blyton book she could lay her hands on. When the government imposed a tax on books during her teen years, her dad told her that he could no longer afford to buy her books and advised her to become a member of every library she could find which is how she was able to borrow books and continue her reading habit.
Indian authors
Amila recalls walking into bookstores and reading books by Indian authors such as Anita Desai and R.K. Narayan. This made her realise that there weren’t many books based on the history and culture of our country written in English by Sri Lankan authors. This was the push she needed to write the book.
“I had friends at university who were much better at writing than me but they never published their work. I personally believe that writing a book is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration,” said Amila.
“When you write about things that you have real experience in, sometimes you hesitate to write it because it might feel like re-visiting some traumatic experiences. There were many occasions over the years when I would just drink my coffee and stare at a blank page without writing anything on it,” she said.
The characters and some of the situations in ‘Ten Thousand Naked Eye Stars’ are inspired by bits and pieces of the author’s own life. Therefore to the author, these emotions are felt very deeply, the sadness feels very heavy and the joy feels ecstatic. These strong feelings are also experienced by whoever picks it up to read.
Amila knows that since what you write is near and dear to you, like your own child, it is natural for writers not to want anyone to criticise their work. But she explained how learning to take criticism despite this, is extremely vital for any author who wants to make their novel the best it can be.
Amila Weerasinghe hopes that this book will shine a spotlight on an era of our history that is dark and yet needs to be remembered for it never to be repeated.
“Remembering the tragic mistakes of our past will enable us – and especially the younger generation – to find a new way forward for our country to work towards a better tomorrow,” she said.
