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Elephant complex: travels in Sri Lanka

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Publisher:
Varies, see individual formats and editions
Pub. Date:
2016
Language:
English
Description
No one sees the world quite like John Gimlette. As The New York Times once noted, “he writes with enormous wit, indignation, and a heightened sense of the absurd.” Writing for both the adventurer and the armchair traveler, he has an eye for unusually telling detail, a sense of wonder, and compelling curiosity for the inside story. This time, he travels to Sri Lanka, a country only now emerging from twenty-six years of civil war. Delving deep into the nation’s story, Gimlette provides us with an astonishing, multifaceted portrait of the island today.
His travels reveal the country as never before. Beginning in the exuberant capital, Colombo (“a hint of anarchy everywhere”), he ventures out in all directions: to the dry zones where the island’s 5,800 wild elephants congregate around ancient reservoirs; through cinnamon country with its Portuguese forts; to the “Bible Belt” of Buddhism—the tsunami-ravaged southeast coast; then up into the great green highlands (“the garden in the sky”) and Kandy, the country’s eccentric, aristocratic Shangri-la. Along the way, a wild and often desperate history takes shape, a tale of great colonies (Arab, Portuguese, British, and Dutch) and of the cultural divisions that still divide this society. Before long, we’re in Jaffna and the Vanni, crucibles of the recent conflict. These areas—the hottest, driest, and least hospitable—have been utterly devastated by war and are only now struggling to their feet.
But this is also a story of friendship and remarkable encounters. In the course of his journey, Gimlette meets farmers, war heroes, ancient tribesmen, world-class cricketers, terrorists, a former president, old planters, survivors of great massacres—and perhaps some of their perpetrators. That’s to say nothing of the island’s beguiling fauna: elephants, crocodiles, snakes, storks, and the greatest concentration of leopards on Earth.
           
Here is a land of extravagant beauty and profound devastation, of ingenuity and catastrophe, possessed of both a volatile past and an uncertain future—a place capable of being at once heavenly and hellish—all brought to vibrant, fascinating life here on the page.
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ISBN:
9780385351270
9780385351287
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Grouping Information

Grouped Work ID392057c6-d12b-2574-5090-18e44b540a0b
Grouping Titleelephant complex travels in sri lanka
Grouping Authorjohn gimlette
Grouping Categorybook
Grouping LanguageEnglish (eng)
Last Grouping Update2024-03-28 02:11:39AM
Last Indexed2024-03-28 02:24:37AM

Solr Fields

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0
accelerated_reader_reading_level
0
author
Gimlette, John, 1963-
author_display
Gimlette, John
available_at_catalog
Central
Southgate
detailed_location_catalog
Central
Southgate
display_description
No one sees the world quite like John Gimlette. As The New York Times once noted, “he writes with enormous wit, indignation, and a heightened sense of the absurd.” Writing for both the adventurer and the armchair traveler, he has an eye for unusually telling detail, a sense of wonder, and compelling curiosity for the inside story. This time, he travels to Sri Lanka, a country only now emerging from twenty-six years of civil war. Delving deep into the nation’s story, Gimlette provides us with an astonishing, multifaceted portrait of the island today.
His travels reveal the country as never before. Beginning in the exuberant capital, Colombo (“a hint of anarchy everywhere”), he ventures out in all directions: to the dry zones where the island’s 5,800 wild elephants congregate around ancient reservoirs; through cinnamon country with its Portuguese forts; to the “Bible Belt” of Buddhism—the tsunami-ravaged southeast coast; then up into the great green highlands (“the garden in the sky”) and Kandy, the country’s eccentric, aristocratic Shangri-la. Along the way, a wild and often desperate history takes shape, a tale of great colonies (Arab, Portuguese, British, and Dutch) and of the cultural divisions that still divide this society. Before long, we’re in Jaffna and the Vanni, crucibles of the recent conflict. These areas—the hottest, driest, and least hospitable—have been utterly devastated by war and are only now struggling to their feet.
But this is also a story of friendship and remarkable encounters. In the course of his journey, Gimlette meets farmers, war heroes, ancient tribesmen, world-class cricketers, terrorists, a former president, old planters, survivors of great massacres—and perhaps some of their perpetrators. That’s to say nothing of the island’s beguiling fauna: elephants, crocodiles, snakes, storks, and the greatest concentration of leopards on Earth.
           
Here is a land of extravagant beauty and profound devastation, of ingenuity and catastrophe, possessed of both a volatile past and an uncertain future—a place capable of being at once heavenly and hellish—all brought to vibrant, fascinating life here on the page.
format_catalog
Book
eBook
format_category_catalog
Books
eBook
id
392057c6-d12b-2574-5090-18e44b540a0b
isbn
9780385351270
9780385351287
itype_catalog
Adult Book Non-Fiction
last_indexed
2024-03-28T09:24:37.294Z
lexile_score
-1
literary_form
Non Fiction
literary_form_full
Non Fiction
local_callnumber_catalog
954.93 G491 2016
owning_library_catalog
Sacramento Public Library
owning_location_catalog
Central
Southgate
primary_isbn
9780385351270
publishDate
2016
publisher
Alfred A. Knopf
Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
recordtype
grouped_work
subject_facet
Gimlette, John, -- 1963- -- Travel -- Sri Lanka
Historic sites -- Sri Lanka
Natural history -- Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka -- Description and travel
Sri Lanka -- History
Sri Lanka -- Social life and customs
title_display
Elephant complex : travels in Sri Lanka
title_full
Elephant Complex Travels in Sri Lanka
Elephant complex : travels in Sri Lanka / John Gimlette
title_short
Elephant complex
title_sub
travels in Sri Lanka
topic_facet
Description and travel
Gimlette, John
Historic sites
History
Natural history
Nonfiction
Social life and customs
Travel

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