Anil’s Ghost by Michael Ondaatje

• Born: September 12, 1943
• Birthplace: Colombo, Ceylon (now in Sri Lanka)

First published: 2000

Type of work: Novel

Type of plot: Detective and mystery

Time of plot: 1980s–90s

Locales: Colombo, Sri Lanka; Galapitigama, Sri Lanka

Principal Characters

Anil Tissera, a forensic pathologist

Sarath Diyasena, an archaeologist

Gamini Diyasena, a field doctor, Sarath’s brother

Ananda Udugama, an artisan

Palipana, a former archeologist and epigraphist

The Story

After studying forensic pathology in the United Kingdom and Canada for fifteen years, thirty-three-year-old Anil Tissera is sent back to her home country of Sri Lanka by the Centre for Human Rights. She is tasked with investigating human-rights abuses that have been occurring in the country since a civil war between the government and separatists began in 1983. Specifically, Anil must help identify bodies that may have been victims of political killings.

Anil is joined by Sarath Diyasena, an archaeologist assigned by the government to act as her guide. Sarath is also a native Sri Lankan, but unlike Anil, he has remained in the country throughout the atrocities of the civil war. Witnessing the horrors of war and suffering severe emotional trauma after his wife committed suicide, Sarath allows his work to consume him so does not have to think too much about the war going on around him.

Anil and Sarath recover skeletons from a government-protected cave believed to have been a sacred grave for monks during the sixth century. Three of the recovered skeletons are dated to prehistoric times, but evidence suggests that a fourth skeleton, nicknamed Sailor, is a recent death. Anil becomes determined to identify the victim. She believes that the victim met a violent death and that, since the skeleton was discovered at a closed site protected by the Sri Lankan army, it is proof of the government’s supposed black operations. After she suggests this to Sarath, he advises her to keep this information secret, making her question his loyalty and neutrality in the civil war.

To aid in identifying Sailor, Sarath takes Anil to the home of his former mentor, famed archaeologist and epigraphist Palipana. He is now stricken with glaucoma and living the life of a hermit inside an ancient forest monastery, where his niece Lakma takes care of him. They spend the night at Palipana’s home, and in the morning, he concludes that Sailor was twenty-eight years old when he died. He provides them with as much information as he can, then advises them to seek out Ananda Udugama, an artisan who can use the skull to construct a representation of Sailor’s face.

As Anil and Sarath drive to the small village of Galapitigama, they come across a man named Gunesena lying in the middle of the road, his hands nailed to the pavement. They remove the nails from his hands and tend to his wounds with help from a small group of men who are illegally manufacturing cigarettes in Galapitigama.

From there, they take Gunesena to a nearby hospital, where Sarath’s younger brother Gamini works as an emergency doctor. He bears daily witness to the atrocities of the civil war. These regular horrors have driven him to abuse narcotics in order to stay awake and meet the demands of patients. Gamini and Sarath act distant toward one another; Anil gradually learns their strained family history and the rifts that tore the brothers apart.

When they meet Ananda, he agrees to help them construct a face for Sailor. Anil finds Ananda to be a maddening drunkard, and the two frequently clash. He is a talented artist, however, and the last in a line of artisans chosen to paint the eyes on Buddha statues. Since his wife, Sirissa, fell victim to the government death squads years before, Ananda has struggled with depression. Upon completing the face of Sailor, Ananda attempts suicide by slashing his throat with a knife. Anil is able to stop the bleeding with some bee-sting medicine before taking him to Gamini for proper treatment.

At the hospital, Anil learns more about Gamini’s troubled past. He was desperately in love with Sarath’s wife and was there when she committed suicide. He was unable to save her, but his desire for her still obsesses him. Now he has lets his work consume him, even sleeping at the hospital to ensure he can care for as many victims of war as possible.

By showing Ananda’s interpretation of Sailor’s face to villagers, Anil is able to identify the body as Ruwan Kumara, a local miner who was accused of being a rebel and subsequently abducted by unknown forces. Anil attempts to present her evidence to the authorities, but Kumara’s skeleton disappears. Frustrated, Anil still tries to make her case. At her presentation, Sarath causes a scene in order to draw government attention away from Anil. It is revealed that Sarath hid the skeleton, and he provides Anil with a chance to escape the country before she is killed for exposing the government’s murder of Kumara.

Anil makes it safely out of the country with Kumara’s skeleton, though she is left to wonder what she actually accomplished. Sarath turns up dead in Gamini’s hospital, where the younger brother considers the toll of war on his country and himself.

The narrative is interspersed with flashbacks concerning Anil’s time in the United States, particularly concerning her former husband, her former lover Cullis, and her relationship with a coworker named Leaf Niedecker. Through these flashbacks Anil further reveals her continuous struggle to form her own identity.

Bibliography

Bolland, John. "Michael Ondaatje’s Anil’s Ghost: Civil Wars, Mystics, and Rationalists." Studies in Canadian Literature 29.2 (2004): n. pag. Web. 15 Apr. 2014.

Burton, Antoinette. "Archive of Bones: Anil’s Ghost and the Ends of History." Journal of Commonwealth Literature 38.1 (2003): 39–56. Print.

Marinkova, Milena. Michael Ondaatje: Haptic Aesthetics and Micropolitical Writing. New York: Continuum, 2011. Print.

Spinks, Lee. Michael Ondaatje. New York: Manchester UP, 2009. Print.