Description
Through a series of fine-grained and historically grounded analyses of the writings of individual figures central to the making of Sinhala nationalist ideology the book demonstrates authenticity’s wealthy and varied presence in Sri Lankan public life and its key role in working out postcolonial nationalism in Sri Lanka and somewhere else in South Asia and the world. It also explores how notions of authenticity shape certain strands of postcolonial criticism and offers a way of questioning the character of the nation as a unit of analysis but on the same time critically explore the deep imprint of nations and nationalisms on people’s lives.