Two political novels. Two troubled moments in an island’s history. One writer exploring the dangerous relationship between power, rebellion and silence.

Outpost of Empire
Shavindra Fernando · October 2026
A tropical paradise. A powerful foreign empire. A terrorist attack that raises more questions than answers.
637 pages · 38 chapters
Paperback £15.99 · Kindle £3.50

What happens when a small island becomes too strategically important to be left alone?

That is the disturbing question at the heart of Outpost of Empire, the new political novel by Sri Lankan writer Shavindra Fernando.

The setting is the fictional Republic of Lackadasia, a beautiful tropical island caught in the shadow of the mighty Dominion of Burgherbugaria. The names may be imaginary, but the political forces they represent are strikingly familiar.

Here is an island with its own flag, national anthem and government. Yet how much independence does it really possess when powerful nations are determined to control its future?

Fernando takes readers into the murky world of neo-colonial influence, regional rivalries and strategic manipulation in the Indo-Pacific.

Then comes a terrible Christmas Eve.

Bombs explode in Roman Catholic churches. Jihadists are blamed. Foreign powers rush forward with promises of protection against global terrorism.

But suspicion begins to grow. Who benefits from the tragedy? Can those offering protection also have interests in the island’s vulnerability?

These are questions raised by the novel’s fictional political world, not established conclusions about real events.

The book’s central tension lies in the uncomfortable possibility that national security, international friendship and humanitarian intervention may sometimes conceal very different political ambitions.

At 637 pages, Outpost of Empire promises a substantial exploration of the politics of fear, influence and sovereignty.

Before the empire, there was a revolution

The Vague Poetess
Third edition · October 2024
A university community, young idealists and the gathering storm of political insurrection.
255 pages · 14 chapters
Paperback £10.50 · Kindle £6.99

Fernando’s earlier novel, The Vague Poetess, travels into another turbulent chapter of Sri Lankan political life.

First published in Colombo in 1999 and brought out in a third edition in England in 2024, it explores an atmosphere in which student life, artistic ambition and political rebellion collide.

The novel’s university setting becomes a stage on which youthful dreams confront the harsh realities of ideological conflict and violence. Its story of political upheaval gained renewed relevance

when a Marxist-led coalition came to power in Sri Lanka in 2024.

Oxford’s Green Templeton College also highlighted the novel in its alumni news, describing its exploration of the tensions between political freedom and artistic life.

A journalist who became a novelist

Shavindra Fernando brings an unusual combination of literary education and journalistic experience to his fiction.

He studied English and Classics at the University of Peradeniya and later pursued International Relations and Ethnic Politics at the University of Oxford as a Reuters Fellow. He has also worked as a reporter.

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That background helps explain his interest in the collision between national politics and individual lives.

In The Vague Poetess, the focus is rebellion from within. In Outpost of Empire, it is manipulation from beyond the island’s shores.

Together, the novels invite readers to consider a larger question: Who truly controls the destiny of a small nation — its people, its rulers or the powerful interests watching from outside?

Why these books deserve attention

Political fiction offers something that history books and newspaper reports cannot always provide. It can explore the fears, contradictions, ambitions and moral uncertainties that lie behind public events.

Fernando’s novels may particularly interest readers of Sri Lankan history, political thrillers, international relations and contemporary English-language fiction.

You need not agree with a novelist’s political interpretation to find value in the questions his fiction raises.

At Lanka Books Online, we believe books should do more than entertain. The most memorable ones also make us reconsider what we think we know.

And sometimes, the most unsettling stories are those set on islands that look remarkably like our own.

Discover Shavindra Fernando’s novels

Both titles are listed by the author as available through Amazon and Waterstones, with the first 20 pages offered for preview. The prices above are the supplied October 2026 prices and may change.

Outpost of Empire is also listed by publisher ShieldCrest, and on Google Play Books.

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