Paola Brusasco's study offers an original insight into Sri Lankan
literature in English and an exploration of cultural, social, and
linguistic issues at the basis of the country's ethnic conflict. By
focussing on two distinctive and representative writers, both Burghers,
yet with different personal histories, Brusasco confronts issues of
cartography, history, and language, all contributing to a specific
definition of identity. Both Ondaatje and Muller are outsiders, the
former because of his diasporic existence, the latter because of his
excentricity within the reality of a divided country where the legacy of
British colonialism and the process of redefinition following
independence in 1948, as well as matters of geography and history,
become crucial to writers.