Womanly “Acts”: “Attaining Age” in Contemporary Sri Lankan Writing

Abstract

The puberty ceremony for young girls is an important rite of passage in Sri Lanka, as it is in many other cultures. The ceremony is commonly referred to as “attaining age.” Many Sri Lankan Anglophone writers have focused on this celebration of menarche and its emphasis on gender performance. Using anthropological studies of the cultural resonances of menstruation this essay considers the ways in which Punyakante Wijenaike, Chandani Lokugé, Vivimarie Vanderpoorten, Sita Kulatunga, and Jean Arasanayagam depict the ceremony in their respective works, tracing in particular how these representations demonstrate ambivalence and anxiety about the social performance of these gendered rituals.