“A Disobedient Girl” – A Novel by Sri Lankan-American Author, Ru Freeman
July 17, 2009 —
Ru Freeman was born into a family of writers and many boys in Colombo, Sri Lanka, where she attended the Holy Family Convent and Ladies’ College. After a year of informal study at Murdoch University in Perth, Western Australia, she arrived in the United States with a Parker ink pen and a box of Staedler pencils to attend Bates College in Maine. She completed her Masters in Labor Relations at the University of Colombo, and worked in the field of American and international humanitarian assistance and workers’ rights.
Ru began writing as a young child when she wrote to the newspapers in Colombo, Sri Lanka, to protest the fact that a cartoon program she liked to watch had been interrupted by a broadcast by then President, J.R. Jayawardena. She won several awards for her writing when she was still in Sri Lanka, including a Presidential Award for creative writing. Hailing from a family of writers (both her father, Gamini Seneviratne and brother, Malinda Seneviratne, are poets and writers), Ru was taught literary criticism and an appreciation for language by her mother who was a teacher at Royal College.
In 2005, Ru was invited to participate at the prestigious Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference in Ripton, Vermont. Since then she has returned to Bread Loaf on scholarship each year at the invitation of Michael Collier, the director of the program. “Bread Loaf made all the difference,” Ru says. “To stand and read where writers like Toni Morrison and Robert Frost had stood to read from their work, was to receive a particular kind of blessing and anointment. It was at Bread Loaf that I met my agent, Julie Barer, and where I found my community of writers and my mentors.”
Ru’s political writing has appeared in English and in translation. Her political work includes a highly successful tsunami relief project which she directed for the state of Maine, and which resulted in the building of new homes for 35 families in Kalametiya, in the Hambantota District. She has also worked for the American Friends Service Committee in disaster and humanitarian assistance and for the U.S. Department of Labor.
Ru is at work on a second novel. She lives in Bala Cynwyd, PA, with her husband and three young daughters. An excerpt from the book may be read on her website: www.rufreeman.com. A Disobedient Girl, will also be published in Dutch, Italian, Chinese, Portuguese and Hebrew. She calls both Sri Lanka and America home and writes about the people and countries underneath her skin.
A Disobedient Girl will be published by Atria Books/Simon & Schuster in July 2009, and has already received high praise:
“Evocative and moving. Ru Freeman is a marvelous storyteller who sees deeply into the complex layers of compassion and love, of sorrow and betrayal. An amazing first novel.”— Ursula Hegi, author of Stones From The River and The Worst Thing I Have Done
“Freeman illustrates contemporary Sri Lankan life through the battles waged between lovers, friends and strangers alike in this study in dignity, strength of character, tolerance and perseverance.” —Publisher’s Weekly.
“It is…a novel distinctive for its unostentatious but easily identifiable Sri Lankan cultural flavours and markers, and for its fresh depiction of Sri Lankan womanhood and femininity, and their circumscribed complexities.” —DesiLit.
“A thrilling debut: Ru Freeman has given us a wonderfully bold and determined protagonist in a richly drawn, complex, fascinating story. I loved it.” —Lynn Freed, author of The Servants’ Quarters.
“Freeman elucidates not only the complexities of friendship, but the sanctity of motherhood and the pervasiveness of loss, how political corruption and the violence it breeds affects women uniquely. A heartbreaking and ultimately uplifting novel that celebrates our ability to transcend tragedy.”— Rishi Reddi, author of Karma and Other Stories and winner of the 2008 PEN/L.L. Winship Award
Article courtesy of Simon & Schuster
