Irangani (also written Ayirangani or Iranganie) is the third novel by Martin Wickramasinghe (1890-1976), first published in 1923, the same year as Seetha. This is a Sinhala-language edition.
The book follows his second novel, Soma, and like it belongs to the sentimental romance tradition popular in Sinhala fiction at the time. Wickramasinghe later said that Irangani was his attempt to break free of that tradition, and critics agree that it went only part of the way. Its interest lies in its heroine. Irangani is a young woman who has been violated against her will by a cousin, Percy Ratnayake, who then abandons her, and she is left to face shame and social exclusion. She marries Reginald, a teacher who reads modern philosophy and science, yet it is he, despite his own past, who refuses to forgive her, while she forgives him. The novel sets her dignity and steadfastness against the failings of both men.
The scholar Sarathchandra Wickramasuriya has described the heroine as a woman seeking independence and her own identity in a way no earlier heroine of Sinhala fiction had done, and links the theme to Wickramasinghe's reading of Tolstoy's Resurrection and Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbervilles. The book sold out within months of publication, though the author was later dismissive of these early romances.
This edition suits Sinhala readers who want to trace how Wickramasinghe moved from popular romance towards the serious fiction of his later career, and readers interested in how women were portrayed in early Sinhala novels.
- Author: Martin Wickramasinghe
- Published: 1923
- Language: Sinhala
