http://sangam.org/wp-content/uploads/sangam-logo-alpha-15.pngIan Goonetileke facial scan
by Sachi Sri Kantha, July 14, 2013
Anti-Tamil riots of July 1983
Eminent bibliographer H. A.I. Goonetileke (1922-2003; long affiliated to the University of Peradeniya as its chief librarian) was one among the handful of contemporary Sinhalese scholars whom I respect very much. His bibliography on the anti-Tamil riots of July 1983 appeared in the Race & Class (London) journal as a 35 page compilation in 1984. To commemorate his tenth death anniversary and also the 30th anniversary of the anti-Tamil riots of July 1983 which he had focused on, I provide the published complete text of this bibliography in a PDF file.
Ian Goonetileke letter 1978In an introduction to this compilation, Ian Goonetileke offered the following details. “The bibliography is basically in two sections: A – ‘The national question: perceptions and performance’, and B – ‘July 1983: outrage and outcome’. Part A is preceded by a brief list of 34 basic historical works which provide a broad framework of historical understanding for the initiate into the main strands of Sri Lanka’s evolution from a pre-feudal society into a modern nation state. Part A, which comprises 167 entries, constitutes a significant and relevant point of entry into the intricacies of the Tamil question in Sri Lanka vis-à-vis the impact of the Sinhala-Buddhist majority. Part B, containing 405 entries, represents a wide range of responses to the cataclysm of  July 1983…”
My One letter correspondence
Though I was at the University of Peradeniya for four years (1977-81) as a postgraduate student and as a temporary assistant lecturer in biochemistry, I never had the opportunity to meet him even once. But, Goonetileke’s magnum opus, ‘Bibliography of Ceylon’ (volumes 1 and 2) was like a Bible for me. Whenever I had free time, my hands would automatically pick up his work and I’d religiously copy down pertinent entries in my note book.