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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Sri Lankna diaspora in Australia,
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This review is from: A change of skies (Picador fiction) (Paperback)
Gooneratne's fictional work covers on notions diaspora, hybridity and transcultural negotiation with humour and irony. A Change of Skies is a story of a journey by a Sri Lankan couple who had only known Australia through fissured and distant visual images as "a blank pink space shaped like the head of a Scotch terrier with its ears pricked up and its square nose permanently pointed westward, towards Britain" (1991: 11)
When Gooneratne published A Change of Skies in 1991, she also established a tradition of representing the Sri Lankan diaspora in the Australian literary scene. Nevertheless, there have been other writers, including Earnest McIntyre (1981), who have used drama to portray the Sri Lankan diaspora in Australia. (1) Following that Chandani Lokuge (2000, 2003) has also provided her perspectives on Sri Lankan diaspora "Down Under" and my own writing (Govinnage, 2002) has followed a similar path. (2) Unlike Lokuge's or my own work, Gooneratne's protagonists are early Sri Lankan immigrants who arrived in Australia at the end of the White Australia policy. Her novel represents a portrayal of early Sri Lankan migrants, their socio-economic status and also their connection with the British Empire as a journey between colonial and national boarders. These journeys take Gooneratne's protagonists into "a culture that is once familiar and unfamiliar." (Paranjape, 2003: 288) The issue of familiar and unfamiliar journeys has been observed by Paranjape in his analysis of the south Asian diaspora in Australia. However, he has failed to provide observations on Gooneratne's work. Nevertheless, Paranjape's observations of familiarity and unfamiliarity of Australia is an important discourse to examine the journeys as represented by Gooneratne. He writes that Australia has "... a culture that is once familiar and unfamiliar. It is familiar because of the shared and enduring connection with the British Empire" (2003: 288) Sunil Govinnage, Perth, Australia
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