Sri Lanka is a small island with a long, violent and enthralling history. Home to thousands of wild elephants, this is a place where natural beauty has endured, indifferent to human tragedy.
Journeying through its regions - some haunted by war, many rarely seen by our eyes - award-winning travel writer John Gimlette interviews ex-presidents and cricketers, tea planters and terrorists, negotiating the complex relationships of diverse communities and the more sinister forms of tourism. Each city raises the ghosts of Portuguese, Dutch or British colonies; each site resurrects a civilization that preceded, and sometimes, outfaced them. The political families of Colombo lead Gimlette through years of turmoil, survivors of the tsunami tell of their recovery and the thorny truths of the civil war emerge - a war whose wounds have yet to heal.
As he walks in the steps of old conquerors, follows the secret paths of elephants and marches alongside pilgrims, Gimlette seeks the soul of a country that is striving to free itself from trauma and embody an identity to match its vitality, its power and its people.
About the Author
John Gimlette is the winner of the Shiva Naipaul Prize for Travel Writing. He crossed the Soviet Union at the age of seventeen, worked in Argentina on the eve of war and has travelled to over eighty countries. He has published four previous books:
At the Tomb of the Inflatable Pig, Theatre of Fish, Panther Soup and
Wild Coast (winner of the Dolman Travel Book Prize) which have all featured on Radio 4, and contributes articles and photographs to various newspapers and magazines. He lives in London where he practices as a barrister.
Industry Reviews
The reader in search of a thoughtful adventure is in good hands. Gimlette brings a brisk barrister-like inquisition to proceedings, allied with amiable good humour and a searching interest in the history of peoples and places ... Intrepid to the last, Gimlette wanders among mountains and jungles, drawing his journey to a close among the wreckage of the civil war ... Rich in humour, full of insight and humanity, Elephant Complex is a very fine tribute to this enigmatic island nation -- Spectator
Brilliant ... It displays his gift for graphic imagery and his eye for the absurd. But it is, perhaps, his darkest book yet ... Along with the swimming trunks and the sunblock, I'd pack a copy of Elephant Complex -- Telegraph
A gripping account of an under-reported island -- Sara Wheeler Spectator, Book of the Year
An intrepid journey to the famously reclusive island unearths a paradise amid trauma and obfuscation ... An effortless, elegant writer, Gimlette chronicles the stories of these truculent, traumatized people ... An exuberant, eye-opening travel quest -- Kirkus
As for Mr. Gimlette, it is hard to think of a more astute and sympathetic companion for a journey around the island and into Sri Lanka's episodic bouts of madness. He is beguiled by the place and its people, for a start. He writes beautifully, all freshness and verve. And he is also very funny -- Wall Street Journal
