''Apē Gama'' ( Sinhala:අපේ ගම,

Tamil Tamil may refer to: * Tamils, an ethnic group native to India and some other parts of Asia **Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka also called ilankai tamils **Tamil Malaysians, Tamil people native to Malaysia * Tamil language, nativ ...

:எங்கள் கிராமம்) (lit. Our Village) is a semi-autobiographical book by Sri Lankan author

Martin Wickramasinghe Lama Hewage Don Martin Wickramasinghe, (commonly known as Martin Wickramasinghe) ( si, මාර්ටින් වික්‍රමසිංහ) (29 May 1890 – 23 July 1976) was a Sri Lankan journalist and author. His books have been tran ...

detailing the narrator's experiences as a child in

Southern Province, Sri Lanka The Southern Province ( si, දකුණු පළාත ''Dakuṇu Paḷāta'', ta, தென் மாகாணம் ''Theṉ Mākāṇam'') of Sri Lanka is one of the nine provinces of Sri Lanka, the first level administrative division of ...

. Initially published in 1940, it was translated into

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

in 1968 as ''Lay Bare the Roots''. It is seventeen chapters long.

Plot

A young boy growing up in a village in Ceylon and how he deals with rapid economic and social changes that are going on around him.

Reception

Charles Hallisey in ''Literary Cultures in History: Reconstructions from South Asia'' states that the narrator is "a villager, unself-consciously secure in his local experiences of the world to such a degree that by nature he was 'literary'." "...this villager becomes a tutor to urbanized authors and readers, who must unlearn what they have been taught in school in order to regain the cultural authenticity that survives in the village." The work was well received by the English educated people of Sri Lanka.

References

{{Reflist 1940 books Sri Lankan books Sinhala-language books Novels by Martin Wickramasinghe