A Palimpsestuous Reading of Shehan Karunatilaka`s

Abstract

The present study is an attempt to device a combined approach towards reading Sri Lankan English literature that takes into account both socio-linguistic and thematic concerns of the cannon. In this context, the study holds the literary medium of Shehan Karunatilaka`s Chinaman: The legend of Pradeep Mathew as a palimpsest, whose linguistic stratification signals a discord between the novel`s linguistic content and its political worldview. Here, the study situates Sri Lankan English within the linguistic ecology of Sri Lanka and observes how different socio-political and socio-linguistic voices inhabit and inhibit each other in constructing the palimpsestuous texture of Sri Lankan English. These observations are in turn compared with the novel`s commentary on national (dis)harmony. This content analysis is conducted by applying Chantal Zabus`s theorization of "relexification” which conceives postcolonial Anglophone writing as a palimpsest, and Sarah Dillon`s theoretical insights in to "palimpsestuous reading” that observes the way different layers of a palimpsestuous text interact with each other in constructing that text. The study observes how the power dynamics that inform the literary medium of "Chinaman” may contradict the novel`s political worldview that promotes an inclusive national consciousness.