Christopher Ondaatje Goes in Search of Leonard Woolf by Christopher Ondaatje

Christopher Ondaatje

Christopher Ondaatje Goes in Search of Leonard Woolf

 

'IT WAS A strange world, a world of bare and brutal facts, of superstition, of grotesque imagination; a world of trees and the perpetual twilight of their shade; a world of hunger and fear and devils, where a man was helpless before the unseen and unintelligible powers surrounding him.' (Leonard Woolf, The Village in the jungle.)

It is a swelteringly hot, humid afiernoon. There is not much wind. I am sitting here writing in a bungalow on the western perimeter of the Yala National Park over- looking Banduwewa - a small reservoir only twenty- eight miles from Beddagama (literally 'jungle village'), the subject of Leonard Woolf's

Sign Up to our newsletter

Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.

RLF - March

A Mirror - Westend

Follow Literary Review on Twitter