Gamperaliya is a novel written by Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the...

n writer Martin Wickremasinghe and first published in 1944.

One of his most famous works, the book depicts the breakup of traditional village life due to the impact of modernisation. The gradual subversion of the traditional economic and social structure

Social structure

Social structure is a term used in the social sciences to refer to patterned social arrangements in society that are both emergent from and determinant of the actions of the individuals. The usage of the term "social structure" has changed over time and may reflect the various levels of analysis...

 of the village by the commercial culture of the city is portrayed through the story of an aristocratic

Aristocracy (class)

The aristocracy are people considered to be in the highest social class in a society which has or once had a political system of Aristocracy. Aristocrats possess hereditary titles granted by a monarch, which once granted them feudal or legal privileges, or deriving, as in Ancient Greece and India,...

 family in a southern village. The novel has been widely praised for its realism

Realism (arts)

Realism in the visual arts and literature refers to the general attempt to depict subjects "in accordance with secular, empirical rules", as they are considered to exist in third person objective reality, without embellishment or interpretation...

 in depicting Sinhala rural life and is considered an important work of Sri Lankan literature

Sri Lankan literature

Sri Lankan literature is the literary tradition of Sri Lanka. The largest part of Sri Lankan literature was written in the Sinhala language, but there is a considerable amount of works in other languages used in Sri Lanka over the millennia .Up to the present, short stories are a very important...

.

The novel was made into a movie

Gamperaliya (film)

Gamperaliya is a 1964 Sri Lankan drama film directed by Lester James Peries; it was adapted from the seminal novel Gamperaliya by Martin Wickramasinghe. The movie was groundbreaking in Sinhala cinema shot entirely outside of a studio using one lamp and hand held lights for lighting...

 in 1964 by Lester James Peries

Lester James Peries

Sri Lankabhimanya Lester James Peries is an internationally acclaimed Sri Lankan film director, screenwriter, and film producer. An active filmmaker since 1949, Peries has been involved in over 28 films, including shorts and documentaries...

.