Rohini is a historical novel by Martin Wickramasinghe (1890-1976), first published in 1929, while he was working as a newspaper editor. This is a Sinhala-language edition.
The story is set in ancient Sri Lanka in the time of King Dutugemunu and his war against the Tamil king Elara, who ruled from Anuradhapura, one of the best-known episodes in the island's chronicles. It follows a warrior in Dutugemunu's army and the woman he loves, Rohini, whose name gives the book its title. Unlike the domestic and social subjects of Wickramasinghe's other novels, Rohini is a tale of heroism and romance against a background of war and kingship.
The book closes the first phase of Wickramasinghe's long fiction. After it he published no novel for fifteen years, until Gamperaliya appeared in 1944 and opened the period of his major work. The scholar Sarathchandra Wickramasuriya classes Rohini, with Unmada Chitra, as a historical romance rather than a realistic novel, and notes that the author himself seldom referred to it in later life. It nonetheless found a wide readership of its own: it was prescribed as a textbook for the Grade 8 Junior School Certificate examination, and was read by thousands of schoolchildren, although it was not written specifically for young people.
This edition suits Sinhala readers who enjoy historical fiction about the Anuradhapura period, students revisiting a former school text, and anyone collecting Wickramasinghe's novels.
- Author: Martin Wickramasinghe
- Published: 1929
- Language: Sinhala
