| Ape Gama | |
| Country: | Sri Lanka |
| Author: | Martin Wickramasinghe |
| Language: | Sinhala |
| Isbn: | 9789558415443 |
| Genre: | Fiction |
| Media Type: | Book |
| Translators: | Lakshmi de Silva |
| Published: | 1940 |
Apē Gama (Sinhala:අපේ ගම, Tamil:எங்கள் கிராமம்) (lit. Our Village)[1] is a semi-autobiographical book by Sri Lankan author Martin Wickramasinghe detailing the narrator's experiences as a child in Southern Province, Sri Lanka. Initially published in 1940, it was translated into English in 1968 as Lay Bare the Roots. It is seventeen chapters long.
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.[2] [3]
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."[4]
The work was well received by the English educated people of Sri Lanka.[5]