Pinned Tweet
My third novel, HERO COME HOME, officially has a cover! It comes out 27.7.27 and is preorderable in the usual places. Cover art by Cokorda Martin!

ALT The cover of my third novel, HERO COME HOME. Four human figures centred, the main image being that of a bearded man looking back over his shoulder (that's Oro, the protagonist), with a circle of symbols behind him. We can see a swan and a key. In the foreground are three people: two women, one with a mysterious marking? scar? who knows!? on her cheek and the other carrying a sword, flanking an older, balding man holding up a pistol. The possibly-scarred woman looks ever so slightly amused, and that is certainly very like her. Everybody else is not happy to be here, or indeed, anywhere
Vajra Chandrasekera retweeted
The full video of my conversation with @V_V_G about her stories in the context of the 'kadalodikal' collection.
Use the CC button to turn on subtitles.
youtu.be/7G3VbIpW3xQ
Vajra Chandrasekera retweeted
Have ordered this book, awaiting with excitement. But yes, many Jews warned against what Zionism would bring with it, especially to Western Jews. They saw it as a form of expelling Jews from Europe's body politic.
🇮🇱🇺🇸 A Pulitzer winner says Zionism began as a Protestant fantasy a century before Herzl, and the Jews who warned it would bring endless war were branded self-hating... a new book brings them back from exile
Palestine was 95 to 97% non-Jewish when the movement began, and one early leader's goal was to make it as Jewish as England is English, so Jewish critics called the project a catastrophe from day one.
Benjamin Moser, whose grandfather fled Nazi Germany in 1938, says:
"Zionism has nothing to do with the Holocaust. Zionism exploited the Holocaust."
Benjamin says Hannah Arendt hinted at Zionist dealings with the Nazis in Eichmann in Jerusalem and was hounded so completely that the Jewish press barely marked her death.
He argues a Star of David on every tank means the backlash to Israel's conduct puts all Jews in grave danger, which is why the anti-Zionist Jews he writes about are screaming themselves hoarse to say this is not us.
@WeTheBrandon
The banning of several of these books wasn't reported on at all (as far as I can tell) in either English or Sinhala-language media; the casual "standard"-ness of the practice is appalling
Book Detention in Sri Lanka: A Joint Statement by Writers kirishanth.com/?p=3925
Vajra Chandrasekera retweeted
புத்தகத் தடுப்பு : எழுத்தாளர் கூட்டறிக்கை kirishanth.com/?p=3917
Vajra Chandrasekera retweeted
ශ්රී ලංකාවේ පොත් රඳවා තබා ගැනීම: ලේඛකයන්ගේ ඒකාබද්ධ ප්රකාශය kirishanth.com/?p=3931
'At Jaffna Customs office, books dealing with political subjects get singled out for scrutiny. The presence of words such as “war,” “military,” “gun,” “Tigers,” and “mass grave” is enough to detain a book.'
- A joint appeal by the Eelam Tamil writers. kirishanth.com/?p=3925
Vajra Chandrasekera retweeted
Book Detention in Sri Lanka: A Joint Statement by Writers kirishanth.com/?p=3925
fyi sri lankan twitter/media folks
Yatharthan has a detailed writeup of what happened on his blog at yatharthan.com/23101-2/
apparently the presence of these forbidden words is enough to—as far as the officials are concerned—ban the book, since their next step is asking the Ministry of Defense in Colombo for permission to release the book already knowing that the Ministry never grants it
Yatharthan's translated his post into Sinhala as well yatharthan.com/3104-2/
Vajra Chandrasekera retweeted
Customs said they don't have a list of confiscated books over the years when @ExaminerLK RTI'ed for them. There's effectively a set of banned books, but nobody knows for sure what they are.
Adding further to the list of censored Tamil books, on Thursday (22), Sri Lanka custom officials in Jaffna refused to release 30 copies of the Tamil novel "Thorai" by Pradeep Kunaradnam alias Yatharthan & informed the author to obtain a "permission from the Ministry of Defence".
Vajra Chandrasekera retweeted
If you ask anyone in Gaza if they know The Sameer Project, they will probably know us from our buses. Mostly because they’re the most visible but also a favorite for people as we are the only group providing this service. Contribute here: chuffed.org/project/113222-t…
One of our buses transports kidney dialysis patients daily to Al Shifa Hospital and back to their homes. The Sameer Project bus takes two groups per day for kidney dialysis treatment.
Your support to this project offers the opportunity to patients to get treatment because otherwise many wouldn’t be able to afford the transport, and wouldn’t be able to walk long distances. Never underestimate how far your donation can go.
Give to our General Fund today: chuffed.org/project/113222-t…
Other ways to donate include:
paypal.me/mahertali (Paypal option, please make sure to add a message saying "GENERAL")
account.venmo.com/u/Maher-Al… (Venmo option, please make sure to add a message saying "GENERAL")
Vajra Chandrasekera retweeted
1. Let’s break down Minister Harshana Nanayakkara’s rebuttal of criticism of the Prevention of Organised Crimes Bill.
Contrary to what the Minister says, the Bill does empower a police officer to arrest a person if the officer thinks a person’s style of dress
Vajra Chandrasekera retweeted
The author is dead! (Crowd cheers) But the author function lives on (crowd boos) Rather than attributing the text to a single origin point, we as critics must map the complex web of institutions and power relations that constitute "authorship" (crowd yawns, disperses)

















