Cultural Encounters and Homoeroticism in Sri Lanka

Robert Aldrich

"Ceylon, or Sri Lanka, was long known to travellers for its luxuriant landscapes, colourful temples and friendly inhabitants--the island once named Serendip. This book explores the sojourns of gay visitors from the late 1800s to the modern day, providing a history of homosexuality, travel and cultural encounter on the island.The book offers profiles of major figures in Sri Lankan culture and of homosexual visitors, both famous and infamous, to the island. It discusses the experiences of sojourners including the Victorian social reformer Edward Carpenter and the German naturalist Ernst Haeckel, such British and American writers as Paul Bowles and Arthur C. Clarke, and the Australian painter Donald Friend. It also pays particular attention to Lionel Wendt, one of the most important modernist photographers outside Europe. For these figures, an erotic appreciation of young men whom they...