Rebirth of a Nation or The Incomparable Toothbrush: The Origin Story and Narrative Regeneration in Sri Lanka

Abstract

I examine the post-Independence role of Sri Lanka's origin story, revealing the ways in which the foundational myth of the Mahavamsa functions as a conflicted site of cultural “encompassment” (Kapferer) in literary and political discourse. Through an analysis of the fiction of Tissa Abeysekara, Carl Muller and the assassinated president Ranasinghe Premadasa, I show how the scripting of this myth in fiction reveals a shift from the celebratory drives of nationalism to a critique of patriotism in a way that both reflects and anticipates a broader paradigmatic shift in the construction of belonging and the outsider found in post-war Sri Lanka.