Novels Based on the Liberation War of the Eelam Tamils

ஈழத்தமிழர்கள் விடுதலைப் போரை முன் வைத்த நாவல்கள் குறித்து....

Abstract

In Tamil literature, the external landscape poems (Puraththinai Padalgal) primarily focus on the theme of war. Behind the glorification of Tamil valor lies the depiction of war and its consequences. The Purananuru poems record battles and conflicts fought between minor Tamil chieftains. However, the war waged by the Tamils of Eelam (Sri Lankan Tamils), whose mother tongue is Tamil, against the violence perpetrated by a government that prioritized Sinhala, remains unparalleled in Tamil history. The armed struggle undertaken by the Tamils against the Sinhalese chauvinist state was of an entirely different nature. For over fifty years, the Eelam Tamils carried out their resistance, which finally came to a tragic end in 2009 after the Mullivaikkal government-led massacres. The scars and pain left behind by the atrocities that took place on Eelam soil during the height of the war are immeasurable. When the militant movement began to train and take up arms, Govindan’s novel Puthiya Thor Ulagam (A New World) was published, documenting internal conflicts and violent incidents within the movements. Generally, literary works produced by these movements aimed to inspire revolutionary zeal among the fighters. Although Shobasakthi’s novel Gorilla vividly portrayed the incidents on the Eelam battlefield and the plight of the civilians during that period, large-scale fictional narratives about the Eelam war remain limited.