An insider’s account from the corridors of power View(s):Thisuri Wanniarachchi won the State Literary Award for Best English Novel at just 16 with her first book ‘Colombo Streets’. Her new book ‘The Department of Chosen Ones’ is an eye-opening insider’s account of how power truly operates inside the Sri Lankan state set against Sri Lanka’s recent political upheavals. I was barely three months old when he was transferred out of Colombo to the war zone. I was too little to understand what war really meant, but I knew what fear felt like, especially when the phone rang. Working for him, going home didn’t feel like going home; it felt like I was constantly working, even when I wasn’t.

Source: Sunday Times January 03, 2026 20:36 UTC