Elephant Complex: Travels in Sri Lanka (Vintage Departures)

ISBN: 0345806999

Author: Gimlette, John

Condition: New

Brilliant. -The Daily TelegraphNo one sees the world quite like John Gimlette. In Elephant Complex, he ventures into Sri Lanka, a country only now emerging from twenty-six years of civil war. Beginning in the exuberant capital, Colombo, Gimlette ventures out in all directions: to the dry zones where the islands 5,800 wild elephants congregate around ancient reservoirs; through cinnamon country with its Portuguese forts; to the Bible Belt of Buddhism; then up into Kandy, the countrys eccentric, aristocratic Shangri-la. In the course of his journey, Gimlette meets farmers, war heroes, cricketers, terrorists, a former president, survivors of great massacres-and perhaps some of their perpetrators. Thats to say nothing of the islands beguiling fauna: elephants, crocodiles, snakes, storks, and the greatest concentration of leopards on Earth. Here is a land of beauty and devastation, a place at once heavenly and hellish-all brought to vibrant, fascinating life here on the page.