Not Quite Paradise: An American Sojourn in Sri Lanka

"Anyone going to Sri Lanka should consider Adele Barker's Not Quite Paradise essential reading. Even travelers headed to other parts of the globe—or those going no farther than their own living room—will find this story of an American woman thoughtfully wending her way through the complexities of another country's culture and history fascinating." —Kristin Ohlson, author of Stalking the Divine and co-author of Kabul Beauty School
Chronicles the author's travels in Sri Lanka, focusing on the differences between daily life there and in the United States, and the devastation suffered by the nation's people after the 2004 tsunami.

An in-depth look at a beautiful island paradise devastated by a thirty-year war and the  tsunami  Weaving together reporting, travelogue, and personal narrative, debut author Adele Barker brings American readers with her to experience Sri Lanka, “the resplendent island” that seems to hang like a teardrop from the tip of India. Barker’s account of the year and a half she spent living and teaching there moves deftly from the daily, personal details of Sri Lankan life and culture to reports on the war between the government and the Tamil Tigers, and the 2004 tsunami in which forty-eight thousand Sri Lankans died in the space of twenty minutes.  Life on the island is complex for a Westerner, and Barker does not miss any of the nuances: the beauty and the bugs; the peaceful, Buddhist pace of life; and the explosive ravages of civil war.  Barker acquaints us with the history of the place, the literature, and the traditions of Buddhism, Hinduism, missionary Christianity, and ancient myths. Not Quite Paradise offers a comprehensive, eye-opening account of the “pearl” of the Indian Ocean and a rare perspective on the massive devastation of the tsunami of December 26, 2004.
A chronicle of life on the resplendent island, combining the immediacy of memoir with the vividness of travelogue and reportage Missing neither the nuances of the peaceful Buddhist pace of life nor the explosive violence of its protracted civil war and the 2004 tsunami, Adele Barker offers an eye-opening account of the “pearl” of the Indian Ocean, inviting American readers to experience firsthand the vivid beauty and turmoil of a place few have ever visited.From the Trade Paperback edition.