Sri Lankan speculative fiction lifts off

Early on in Vajra Chandrasekera's lyrical, secondary-world fantasy The Saint of Bright Doors, the city of Luriat is said to be under the administration of "competing Dissolution Orders and Emergency Regulations," effectively governed by executive-run task-forces due to the "ongoing failure of Parliament." It is a moment that presents a frisson of recognition to the Southasian reader – floating signifier though that term might be – before the story returns to Chandrasekera's vividly imagined universe. Moments like these are scattered throughout the novel, anchoring The Saint of Bright Doors to a set of coordinates – a time and a place – even as Chandrasekera explores classic themes of power, memory, love and revenge.

"The only way to change the world is through intentional, directed violence," says Mother-of-Glory to her son Fetter, whom she is training to assassinate his father, for reasons yet unclear. Violence is a theme that underlies The Saint of Bright Doors: bureaucratised state violence in Luriat; revolutionary violence – dreamed of and at times executed – by the protagonist, Fetter, and his comrades; the spectacular violence that has historically accompanied the spread of institutionalised religion; and personal, "directed" violence of the kind articulated in Mother-of-Glory's desire for revenge.