Tab Article

Ratings: ★★★★☆ (4.5/5)
Genre: Short Stories, Sri Lankan Literature, Fiction

Book Review:
Lalitha K. Witanachchi's ''The Wind Blows Over The Hills'' occupies a special place in Sri Lankan English literature as one of the inaugural winners of the Gratiaen Award in 1993. This recognition—shared with another distinguished work—signaled the arrival of a mature voice capable of capturing the complexities of Sri Lankan life with compassion, humor, and unflinching honesty.

What makes this collection particularly remarkable is the depth of experience the author brings to her craft. Witanachchi's thirty years as a teacher in Sri Lankan schools, her two years in Nigeria as a Senior Lecturer, and her career as a journalist with the Daily News have given her an intimate knowledge of human behavior across cultures and contexts. The ''subtle perceptions as a teacher'' that the reader can recognize in some stories reflect an eye trained to observe, analyze, and understand.

The stories themselves bear the marks of this accumulated wisdom. They are, as the book's description notes, ''mellow and enjoyable''—not in the sense of being unchallenging, but in their maturity of vision. Witanachchi writes with the confidence of someone who has seen enough of life to know that easy judgments are rarely possible, that humor and tragedy often coexist, and that compassion is the only adequate response to human complexity.

Her journalistic training shows in the precision of her prose and her eye for revealing detail. The Esmond Wickremasinghe Award she received for outstanding journalistic writing recognized skills that serve her equally well in fiction: clarity, economy, and the ability to find the universal in the particular.

The collection's title story, ''The Wind Blows Over The Hills,'' suggests themes of change, impermanence, and the forces beyond human control that shape our lives. These concerns echo throughout the collection, giving it thematic coherence without sacrificing variety.

For readers interested in Sri Lankan English literature, the short story form, or simply writing of high quality, this collection is essential. It represents the work of a writer who came to fiction with a lifetime of observation and reflection, and who crafted stories that continue to resonate. The Gratiaen Award's recognition was not merely ceremonial but a genuine acknowledgment of literary achievement that has stood the test of time.