The Garland of Fate

by Ruana Rajepakse

The time is circa 520BC. The setting is ancient India from Benares to Takshila. Economic circumstances cause the two daughters of a small-time farmer to be assigned two very different roles: the elder being given in marriage to an ambitious, social climbing merchant, while the younger girl is sold as an apprentice to a wealthy city courtesan, whose role she eventually inherits. Meanwhile a young man from a good family falls in with a gang of bandits, is captured, and paraded through the streets of the city prior to execution. The younger of the two sisters decides to save him… and thereby sets in motion a chain of events that dramatically impacts on the lives of all the characters.

(From Publisher).

Ruana Rajepakse is a lawyer by profession and the author of two professional books, An Introduction to Law in Sri Lanka and A Guide to Current Constitutional Issues in Sri Lanka. Her previous forays into creative writing were focused on the stage an included a “Colombo” version of R.B. Sheridan’s School for Scandal, and the one-act play All in a Day’s Work which won the prize for the English Association of Sri Lanka Creative Writing Competition for 1997. Her first play War Story set in the Kotte period showed an inclination for historical research which is more fully displayed in The Garland of Fate which is her first novel.