Ruhuna is the old name for the south of Sri Lanka — the country beyond the Walawe, the region that became a seat of power after Dutugemunu drove out the invaders from South India. Suriya Jayalath Perera's account follows that story from its early days through to the present, drawing on folklore as much as on formal history, and setting it against the landscape the kingdom occupied.
The book is heavily illustrated, and the photographs are Perera's own. Much of the wildlife work comes from Yala National Park, which sits within the historical territory the text describes, and includes close-up photography of leopards. Alongside the animals, the book covers the plant life of the region and its cultural heritage, so that the natural and the human record of the south sit together rather than in separate compartments.
That pairing is the point of the book. A great many volumes treat Ruhuna as a chapter in the chronicles and a great many others treat Yala as a wildlife destination; here the same ground is presented as both at once. The folklore approach means the material is not confined to what the inscriptions and chronicles can bear — the stories that have attached themselves to the south over the centuries are part of what Perera sets down.
Perera is a photographer as well as a writer on the subject. He is the founder president of the America Sri Lankan Photographic Art Society, and was the first Sri Lankan to hold a nature photographic exhibition in the United States. That background shows in how the book is put together: the images are not decoration added to a finished text but a substantial part of what is being offered.
It will suit readers with an interest in the southern province who want more than a park guide — visitors who have driven the tracks at Yala and want to know what the land was before it was a reserve, students of Sri Lankan regional history who are curious about the folklore layer, and photographers looking at Sri Lankan wildlife work. Anyone assembling a shelf on the island's national parks or on the old kingdoms will find it sits comfortably in either place.
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