Jean Arasanayagam

Jean Arasanayagam (born Jean Solomons; 1931 in Kandy, Sri Lanka) is an English-language poet and fiction writer. The theme in her work is ethnic and religious turmoil in Sri Lanka. Her husband, Thiyagarajah Arasanayagam and their two daughters, Devasundari and Parvathi, all share the same passion for writing, one, Parvathi has taken after Jean. She has made a mark of her own as a poet/writer.

Background

Arasanayagam is a Dutch Burgher, the term for offspring of Dutchmen and indigenous women.

Early life

Arasanayagam attended the Girls' High School, Kandy.

Works

• Past teacher of St. Anthony's College, Kandy

Poetry

• Kindura (1973)
• Poems of Season Beginning and a Season Over (1977)
• Apocalypse '83 (1984)
• The Cry of the Kite (1984)
• A Colonial Inheritance and Other Poems (1985)
• Out of Our Prisons We Emerge (1987)
• Trial by Terror (1987)
• Reddened Waters Flow Clear (1991)
• Shooting the Floricans (1993)
• Nallur
• ruined gopuram
• mother-in-law

Prose

• The Cry of the Kite (A collection of short stories) (Kandy, 1984)
• The Outsider (Nagasaki University: Bulletin of the Faculty of Liberal Arts, 1989)
• Fragments of a Journey (Colombo : WERC, 1992)
• All is Burning (New Delhi : Penguin Books India, 1995)
• Peacocks and Dreams (New Delhi : Navrang, 1996)