In a Time of Burning

<p>This selection charts the civil war in Sri Lanka, a war which has raged for more than three decades, and left a once idyllic landscape devastated. Together these works encapsulate the Tamil story of exile and displacement, of love overshadowed by uncertainty and loss. Introduced by Sascha Ebeling.</p><p>Translated by Lakshmi Holmström.<br><br><em>Amma, don't weep.</em><br><em>There are no mountains to shoulder your sorrow</em><br><em>there are no rivers</em><br><em>to dissolve your tears.</em><br><br><em>The instant he handed you</em><br><em>the baby from his shoulder,</em><br><em>the gun fired. </em><br>(from 'Amma, don't weep', 1985)</p><p><strong>Cheran</strong> was born in Alaveddy in Jaffna, Sri Lanka. His two early collections, <em>A Second Sunrise</em> (1982) and <em>God of Death</em> (1984), and an anthology of Tamil resistance poems, <em>Amidst Death, We Live</em> (1985), are all landmarks in contemporary Tamil poetry. He currently teaches at the University of Windsor, Toronto.<br><br><strong>Lakshmi Holmström</strong> recently co-edited <em>The Rapids of a Great River: the Penguin Book of Tamil Poetry</em> (2010). From 2003 to 2006, she was a Royal Literary Fund fellow at the University of East Anglia.</p><p><strong>This book is also available as an ebook</strong>: buy it from Amazon <a>here</a>.</p>