Tradition Overturned: A Modern Literature in Sri Lanka

Abstract

The modern Sinhala literature, which appeared at the beginning of the twentieth century, is everything that the classical Sinhala literature is not. The attitudes of the writers have changed radically, the themes are different (they even touch on the tabooed), a materialistic outlook takes the place of the self-negating, ascetic philosophy of the older writers, and the only continuity one can recognise is in the language.