The Awakening

The story is based around a Sri Lankan girl’s, trials and tribulations interwoven into the history of the country and its independence struggles. The novel uses many different strands of reality to weave texture, adventure, humour and philosophy into the story Circumstances and abandonment of her mother by her father changes the personality of her mother inexorably, forcing the mother into a downwards decline in morality, causing Marian to be raped as a minor by the lodger. At the age of 16 years, accompanied by her mother, grieving, deeply depressed and suicidal, she arrives in England to settle in London. The novel then describes the grim experiences of arriving in post war Britain. With strength of character and determination she strives to adjust and overcome the discomfort, ignorance and racial discrimination and how it nearly stops her from achieving her dreams.