Kumari Jayawardena

At the end of a quarter century of conflict, over 100,000 Sri Lankans have died and thousands of survivors have been victims of sexual violence. The subsequent cry for justice cannot be ignored. In The Search for Justice, a collection of writers and activists look to history and contemporary politics to examine the root causes of sexual violence in Sri Lanka. Offering an analysis of the polarizations created around ethnic and linguistic identities during the war years and an examination of the routine violence toward women, the authors argue powerfully that Sri Lankan women must not be treated only as victims, but as potential and actual agents of change. Edited by Kumari Jayawardena and Kishali Pinto-Jayawardena, the volume points to a hitherto unaddressed aspect of sexual violence: that of the structures and systems that enable impunity on the part of perpetrators. Whether they are security personnel and paramilitary forces, members of armed groups and gangs, local politicians and police, or, often, ordinary citizens including close family members, perpetrators operate with impunity. The Search for Justice is a compelling new installment in the Zubaan Series on Sexual Violence and Impunity in South Asia.

For twenty-five years, Feminism and Nationalism in the Third World has been an essential primer on the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century history of women's movements in Asia and the Middle East. In this engaging and well-researched survey, Kumari Jayawardena presents feminism as it originated in the Third World, erupting from the specific struggles of women fighting against colonial power, for education or the vote, for safety, and against poverty and inequality. Journalist and human rights activist Rafia Zakaria's foreword to this new edition is an impassioned letter in two parts: the first to Western feminists; the second to feminists in the Global South, entreating them to use this "compendium of female courage" as a bridge between women of different nations. Feminism and Nationalism in the Third World was chosen as one of the top twenty Feminist Classics of this Wave, 1970-1990, by Ms. magazine, and won the Feminist Fortnight Award in the UK.

In The White Woman's Other Burden, Kumari Jayawardena re-evaluates the Western women who lived and worked in South Asia during the period of British rule. She tells the stories of many well-known women, including Katherine Mayo, Helena Blavatsky, Annie Besant, Madeleine Slade, and Mirra Richard and highlights the stories of dozens of women whose names have been forgotten today. In the course of this telling, Jayawardena raises the issues of race, class, and gender which are part of current debates among feminists throughout the world.