Essays and journalism
The New York Times, Opinion:
The New York Times Book Review:
A Biracial Family Risks Persecution in 1920s Cape Town Dec. 16, 2022
A Former Marine Looks Back on Her Life in a Male-Dominated Military April 21, 2019
Stories of Familial Unrest and Displacement Sept. 8, 2017
‘Where Women Are Kings,’ by Christie Watson May 8, 2015
Fiction in Translation | ‘Karate Chop,’ by Dorthe Nors, and More March 7, 2014
Other publications:
Trysts With Sri Lanka's Ghosts: In the Booker Prize-winning “The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida,” the past haunts a country racked by unresolved death (review) Jan. 7, 2023, Foreign Policy
I Spent Years Writing My Novel and Then I Lost the Full Use of My Hands Jan. 6, 2023, TIME Magazine
On Authenticity, Research, and Writing From the Diaspora: On Writing About Sri Lanka Jan. 4, 2023, Literary Hub
Op-Ed: In Ukraine, as in other wars, the full history will take years to tell and it will be told by women Dec. 27, 2022, Los Angeles Times
The marriages in-between A review of Sidharthan Maunaguru’s 'Marrying for a Future: Transnational Sri Lankan Tamil Marriages in the Shadow of War'. Jan. 2020 Himal Southasian
Cliff Huxtable Stole My Heart, Bill Cosby Broke It He felt like a part of my family, but I only knew the character he wore as a mask. July 27, 2017 Electric Literature anthologized in Little Boxes (Coffee House Press)
The Authentic Outsider Bill Cheng, Anthony Marra, and the freedom to write what you don’t know. Sept. 19, 2013 The Margins (The Asian American Writers’ Workshop)
‘Wave,’ by Sonali Deraniyagala (review) March 15, 2013 The San Francisco Chronicle
Heap of Trouble (review) Katherine Boo chronicles life inside a Mumbai slum March/April 2012 Columbia Journalism Review
The Politics of Grief Aug. 28, 2011, Granta Online
Sri Lanka’s alternatives abroad Are the island’s diasporas a source of remittances, a threat, or legitimate sites for political engagement and critique? (co-authored with Kitana Ananda and Ashwini Vasanthakumar) December 2010 (cross-posted on Sepia Mutiny) Himal Southasian
Context M.I.A. M.I.A. may not get her story straight—but neither does Lynn Hirschberg
June 3, 2010, Columbia Journalism ReviewI Don’t Want To Fight (in conversation with Amitava Kumar) November 2009 (guest-edited fiction with Kumar; selections include work by Romesh Gunesekera, Tania James, Preeta Samarasan, and Hasanthika Sirisena; Guernica
Written in the Stars (review) October 19, 2008 The Washington Post
I Wrote a Story, Not the Whole Story July 13, 2008 The Washington Post
Endpaper: It’s All in a Name Thursday, April 29, 1999 The Harvard Crimson