<b>From one of our most widely praised travel writers--author of&nbsp;<i>Wild Coast&nbsp;</i>and&nbsp;<i>Panther Soup</i>--an eye-opening journey through Sri Lanka that, in the author's inimitable mixture of history, observation, and interpretation, reveals the island nation to us as never before.</b><br><br>Writing with his signature eye for the unusually telling detail, his sense of urbane wonder, and his investigative desire for the whole story, John Gimlette takes us from Sri Lanka's exuberant capital city of Colombo to the dry interior where more than 5,300 wild elephants congregate at an ancient reservoir; from the Portuguese-built cinnamon forts of the west coast to the tsunami-ravaged south; from the tea plantations of the highlands and the Shangri-la-ish city of Kandy to the nearly barren Jaffna Peninsula in the north. He examines Sri Lanka's colonial history (Portuguese, British, Dutch, even a touch of Danish); the centuries-old strife between Buddhist Sinhalese and Hindu Tamils; and the most recent civil war, which lasted from 1983 to 2009. He describes his encounters with devil-dancers, terrorists, a former president, ancient tribesmen, British expats, survivors of the civil war massacres, and with the island's amazing flora, including the world's greatest concentration of leopards. He discovers a place of both extravagant beauty and profound devastation, a place capable of being both heavenly and hellish at the same time, and succeeds in bringing it to vibrant, fascinating life on the page.