Wave, by Sonali Deraniyagala – review

Sonali Deraniyagala’s horrific book Wave, about her experience in and after the 26 December 2004 tsunami that struck the south-east coast of Sri Lanka, is one of the most moving memoirs I have ever read.

All year round, day and night, if you looked down that long two-mile line of sea and sand, you would see, unless it was very rough, continually at regular intervals a wave, not very high but unbroken two miles long, lift itself up very slowly, wearily, poise itself for a moment in sudden complete silence, and then fall with a great thud upon the sand.  That moment of complete silence followed by the great thud, the thunder of the wave upon the shore, became part of the rhythm of my life.  It was the last thing I heard as I fell asleep at night, the first thing I heard when I woke in the morning – the moment of silence, the heavy thud; the moment of silence, the heavy thud – the rhythm of the sea, the rhythm of Hambantota.
Leonard Woolf (Growing)

Anyone who has been to Hambantota, stayed at the Rest House and looked down at the beautiful bay lined with catamarans at the very edge of the town, will remember Woolf’s description of the sea because it was impossible not to experience what he heard before falling asleep.

But it also used to frighten me. It was indeed the rhythm of life on that beautiful bay which has long been known as one of the safest anchorages in the world. The Greek navigators of Alexander the Great knew of the harbour, as did Ptolemy, who marked it on his map of Taprobane under the name Dionysii. Today’s name probably derives from sampan-tota, meaning ‘harbour of the sampans’. Malays, sailing in their sampans westwards across the ocean from southeast Asia, came to Ceylon in search of elephants.