The Village in the Jungle

(Paperback, New edition)

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Description

This novel set in Ceylon follows the lives of a handful of villagers hacking out a fragile existence in a jungle where indiscriminate growth, indifferent fate and malevolent neighbours constantly threaten to overwhelm them. It is as if Thomas Hardy were immersed in the heat, scent, sensuality and pungent mystery of the tropics. Seven years as a colonial administrator gave Woolf first-hand knowledge of the injustice of colonial rule, and an acute psychological sympathy with the villagers. He skillfully incorporates local story-telling traditions and beliefs into his chilling narrative, to create a book which remains one of the best-loved in Sri Lanka to this day.

Reviews

"'a superbly dispassionate observation and a great novel' Quentin Bell 'as relevant today as when it first appeared' E F C Ludowyk"

Author Bio

Leonard Woolf was born in London in 1880. Educated at St. Paul's School and Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1904 he joined the Civil Service in Ceylon returning to England in May 1911. With his wife, Virginia Woolf, he lived at the heart of the Bloomsbury Group, setting up the Hogarth Press with her in 1917. He wrote two novels, a number of works of non-fiction and a brilliant five-volume memoir. He died in 1969.