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This review discusses three Sri Lankan expatriate texts - When Memory Dies by A. Sivanandan, North South and Death by Bamini Selladurai and Cousins by Chitra Fernando.In her discussion, the author outlines the way in which stories of small places have been used to articulate alternative understandings of Sri Lankan history. Against the official histories of partition are complex, entwined histories and relationships of Sri Lankan people. She encourages the reader to be ready to listen to multiple unfashionable histories; to be able to think different pasts in order to be able to make new futures.
In comparing Vikram Seth's An Equal Music and Lokuge's If the Moon Smiled, Hosking notes the way both works explore the meeting ground between East and West, tradition and modernity.
The author examines Asia-Australia relationships between 1997 and 2000, noting changing political attitudes of the times. She compares Asian attitudes towards Australia at the time of the East Timor crisis with those observed in the fiction of the Asian diaspora in Australia.