Karuvala Gedara (also spelled Karuwala Gedara) is a novel by Martin Wickramasinghe (1890-1976), the writer often called the father of modern Sinhala literature. It is usually dated to 1963, and this is a Sinhala-language edition. The title is rendered in English as House of Shadows; within the story the house takes its name from the large trees that keep it in shade.
The novel follows one family in the southern village of Koggala, Wickramasinghe's own birthplace, over roughly the years 1920 to 1945, with episodes in Colombo and Kamburupitiya. At its centre is Sirimal, who leaves the village to study law in Colombo and becomes a successful advocate. Around him are his father Thinan Mudalali, the businessman who builds the house; Rathu Hamine, his father's childless lawful wife; his own mother, Podi Hamine; and his brother Nimal, a village tough who turns local politician.
After the Second World War Sirimal returns to find Koggala changed: the villagers' lands have been taken for the wartime airfield and its runway. The homecoming opens up family quarrels, debts and a strained relationship with the people he left behind, and the book is preoccupied with guilt, nostalgia, impermanence, opportunism and the gap between classes, often seen with the author's sharp irony about Sri Lankan society.
The novel was adapted for the screen as Karuwala Gedara by the director Sudath Rohana.
It will interest readers who know Wickramasinghe's village novels and want his later, more personal look at Koggala and the people it shaped.
- Author: Martin Wickramasinghe
- Published: 1963
- Language: Sinhala
