Anil's Ghost

The author sets this fictional work against the backdrop of the decades-long civil war in Sri Lanka. The conflict was a consequence of colonial policy and developed over ethnic and linguistic divisions between the Sinhalese and Tamil groups. British colonizers, whose rule lasted from the early 19th century into the middle of the 20th (circa 1815-1948), elevated the minority Tamils to positions of power within the colonial government. Once Sri Lanka gained independence, the Sinhalese majority regained control of much of the government, often taking punitive measures over the Tamils, such as enshrining Sinhalese as the official language of the island nation. The Tamil insurgents wanted to separate from the Sinhalese government and form their own country, with their own language and ethno-religious traditions. This led to a continuous state of war, beginning in the 1980s and officially ending in the late 2000s. The effects of this long-lasting war are evident in Anil’s Ghost. Anil’s long separation from Sri Lanka illustrates the length of the war: She leaves in part to escape the war, and 15 years later, when she returns, it continues. It hovers over the lives of the characters like the ghost of the title: Sarath’s wife dies a death of despair; Ananda’s wife died during the village raid; Gamini buried himself in the endless work of war at the hospital.

As Ondaatje tells it, however, there is more to this story than the official historical version. He suggests, in an introductory note to the novel, that a third group was involved in the conflict: the Sri Lankan government. There were many Tamils in the north of the country who originally came from India, brought in as indentured labor on tea and coffee plantations. Their ethnic and religious identity still closely connect to the Tamil Nadu region of India and the Hindu religion. The Sinhalese historically follow the Buddhist religion. Ondaatje himself hails from Sri Lanka originally, the descendent of early Dutch settlers, who occupied the island before the British colonial presence, and Indigenous Sinhalese. He has resided in Canada for much of his life; however, the subject of much of his writing has concerned itself with Sri Lanka and its beauty amidst its terrifying troubles. While Anil’s Ghost is a fictional work, it carries a burden familiar to many postcolonial works and writers: the burden of telling a truth that the authorities must deny or deflect. When the government is unreliable and corrupt, the storyteller must, ironically, set the record straight.

Ondaatje also asserts in his author’s note, originally published in 2000, that the war has not truly ended. Publication of Anil’s Ghost predated the official end of the civil war, which most historians mark as 2009. According to many human rights organizations and other nongovernmental institutions, however, the government of Sri Lanka continues to alienate or displace Tamil groups, keeping them under constant surveillance. The government also continues to enforce authoritarian policies that anger Sinhalese groups. Its human rights record is bleak.