ABSTRACT
Through three case studies, Visakesa Chandrasekaram's Paangshu, Upul Sannasgala's Athurudahan Adaraya series and Nandana Weeraratne's Palutava: How to Deal with Pain, the present examination explores a recent tendency in Southern Sri Lanka that focuses on the representation of female victims and survivors of the country's political emergency during 1987–90. The emergency was brought on by a conflict between the Sri Lankan state and the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) that resulted in the death of over 60,000 persons. The majority of them were state-led extra-judicial killings. While an emerging body of survivor/witness stories emerged over the next three decades, they were exclusively narratives focused on male victims and narrated by male voices. Narratives by women centred on women's trauma remain a notable absence in the published sphere. Even where the ordeal of women abductees and prisoners is recorded the documentation conventionally happens through male agency. The discussion locates the three case studies in this context as representing a recent tendency that offsets the conventional trend to introduce the conscience and response of women as alternative interventions with the memory of violence.
