Woolf in Ceylon: An Imperial Journey in the Shadow of Leonard Woolf 1904-1911 - Hardcover

Ondaatje, Christopher

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0002007185 ISBN 13: 9780002007184

Publisher: HarperCollins (Canada) Ltd, 2005

Synopsis

Physical description: xi, 326 p. : ill. (some col.), col. map ; 27 cm. Notes: SIGND copy. Includes bibliographical references (p. 311-313) and index. Subjects: Woolf, Leonard 1880-1969 - Homes and haunts - Sri Lanka - Career in civil service. Travel. Biography. Great Britain. Colonial Office - Officials and employees - Politics and government - 20th century. Genre: Bibliography. Biography. Illustrated text.

About this title

Synopsis:

Leonard Woolf was born in London in 1880 and spent five years at Trinity College, Cambridge where he began lasting friendships with men such as Lytton Strachey, E. M. Forster and John Maynard Keynes. In 1904 Woolf applied to join the home civil service but failed the exam. Instead, he was sent to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) as a cadet in the Ceylon civil service, joining the small group of white administrators who ruled the colony. He remained there for nearly seven years. In Woolf in Ceylon Christopher Ondaatje, who was himself born and brought up on the island, follows in the footsteps of Woolf. Drawing on his personal experience of Ceylon and empire, he compares the way of life during imperial days with that of the post-colonial era. We learn as much about the country, its people and their transformation of the country during the past century as we do about the man who used his colonial career to become one of the leading English men of letters of the twentieth century. Ondaatje's sensitive descriptions, illustrated with period and modern photographs, tell the compelling story of Woolf's sojourn in Ceylon and his developing disillusionment with the British colonial system. The result is a unique evocation of both a vanished imperial world and a colonial servant's enduring legacy in the contemporary culture of an enchanted but troubled island.

About this edition

• Publisher: HarperCollins (Canada) Ltd
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0002007185
• ISBN 13: 9780002007184
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 328