Terror and Reconciliation explores the English language literature that has emerged from Sri Lanka’s quarter-century long ethnic conflict. It examines poetry, short fiction and novels by both diasporic writers and writers resident in Sri Lanka. Its discussion of resident Sri Lankan writers is particularly important because it calls attention to a rich and ambitious body of work that has largely been ignored in the Western academy and media until now. The book outlines the ways in which a wide range of resident and diasporic writers have sought to represent the conflict, mourn the violence and terror associated with the conflict, and present options for reconciliation in the conflict’s aftermath. The writers discussed grapple with issues of terrorism, human rights, nationalism, war, democracy, gender, ethnicity, and reconciliation, making this a study of profound interest for students and scholars of South Asian literature and culture, postcolonial studies, race and ethnic studies, women’s studies, and peace studies.

"This informative book thus studies Sri Lankan novels and poetry in English of the war years up to 2009 as a literature which provides a space for reconciliation by cutting across ethnic boundaries. Quoting Nihal de Silva – “I feel strongly that the road to settling our problem is for people to interact, and that their humanity has to do the rest” (90) – Jayasuriya argues that Sri Lankan identity and Sri Lankan literature must now be framed in different terms (158). She concludes by praising these writers for providing grounds for optimism, which, it is to be hoped, Sri Lankan anglophone literature after this period will go on to explore." - Journal of Postcolonial Writing