Donald Stadtner’s Sacred Sites of Sri Lanka

I don't think it’s proper to begin a book review on an autobiographical note, but in this case, I make an exception.

- BY UDITHA DEVAPRIYA

Image credit SriLankan

(SriLankan)

I first met Don Stadtner through an email in 2020. He had read an article of mine and queried me about it. I can’t remember what the article was - most of what I wrote back then, I admit, was pedestrian and is best forgotten - but I remember being struck by his enthusiasm. In one of his first emails, he mentioned to me that he was writing a book, and that it was about some cultural sites in Sri Lanka.

I got in touch with Stadtner again when I was assisting Dr SinhaRaja Tammita-Delgoda on his study of George Keyt. Don was himself an art historian, and it so happened that we needed access to a publication - an art journal - that could shed light on the 43 Group. As with most such rare books on Sri Lanka, it was not available in Sri Lanka, and I felt he would know where to find it. As luck would have it, he did, and he found it for us: it was right there, at the University of California Berkeley library.

Don and I finally met in 2024, when I was in San Francisco on an IVLP. Thought this turned out to be a short visit, we managed to catch up on what we were up to - all over a delicious dinner of kimchi and chicken rice at a Korean restaurant.

Months later he and his wife came to Sri Lanka, where my friend and assistant-cum-guide Manusha guided us around some temples and ruins in Colombo. Six months later he returned to Sri Lanka to launch that book he said he was writing when we first connected.

Five years is a very long time, but here we are, and here it is. Sacred Sites of Sri Lanka - as deceptively self-explanatory a title as there can ever be - has hit the shelves in Sri Lanka. In addition to being a concise account of various historical places in the country, it is also, I daresay, a visual feast. The book came out in August, and since then has been read widely. It has not, however, been as widely reviewed.