"Like the Wind" is a book that deals with extremes. Written by Daisy Abey, its storyline takes us through the laidback existence of village life in southern Sri Lanka and contrasts it with the hardships of surviving in the cold and unwelcoming atmosphere of urban council housing in Britain.

The story is about a girl called Rupa who escapes the pressures of an arranged marriage by choosing her own partner and migrating to Britain. Subsequently, her marriage fails and she has to survive as a single mother who by going through the day-to-day struggles of existence in the West, finds and begins to value herself.

The ease of living within a traditional eastern community is contrasted with the harsh realities of coping with the loneliness of life in the west. The transition from a sheltered life where everything is done for you, to one that leaves you as the one and only person who can make decisions about the future you face, is laid bare in this story, during which Rupa gradually exchanges east for west and shuns her dependence to find her independence.

Talking to Daisy Abey, I discovered that this book is essentially about herself. Abey is a pseudonym, a shortened version of her married name, Abeygunasekara. She was born in Horapawita, near Matara and studied at the University of Peradeniya from 1960 to 1963, leaving Sri Lanka in 1965.

It was during her days as an undergraduate that she was exposed to issues of caste and the position of women in Sinhalese society and thus, began to question the value system ingrained in our traditions. Her questioning nature and desire for further education weaves like a thread throughout this autobiographical novel that she has coloured with experiences of people and places that have touched her existence.

Several episodes in the book are events that relate to the uncomfortable positioning of a Sinhala Buddhist girl surviving in Britain and adapting to its language and culture.

Daisy Abey exudes a particular love for nature. This becomes apparent in most of her writing, which is heavy with descriptions of the land and sky in the two countries that she units with her prose.

Daisy Abey began writing in Sinhala but her first story "Gimhana Ahase Tharaka" (Stars in the Summer Sky) still remains unpublished. After this she launched into what seems to be her first love, writing poetry. Her poetry has a strange resonance that flirts between that which is essentially English, joining it with her Sinhalese roots.

This unique quality, which is very much her ‘style’ has proved to be her point of recognition. Benjamin Zephaniah (British Poet of the Year 2003) says, "Daisy Abey’s Under Any Sky reminds me that we live in a very small world". The Journal of British Poetry recommends her work saying that it is "a sensuous appreciation of the exotic meeting of East and West."

Several of her poetry books including Silent Protest, On Pennine Heights, In Exile and Under Any Sky have been published by the Sixties Press, London. Her poetry has also been included in the European Minority Literatures In Translation Project (EMLIT) 2003, which is published by Brunel University Press and the Redbeck Anthology of British South Asian Poetry.

The mingling of the two cultures that she draws from is visible in her writing. She cites Emily Bronte's 'Wuthering Heights' and Ediriweera Sarachchandra's 'Maname' as sources of her inspiration. And these give us an indication of the two opposite ends of the spectrum that influence her writing. However, both her novel and her poetry give us the feeling that she yearns for the ease of her past whilst being unable to tear herself from the choices she made and the freedom she has given herself by living in the West.

Daisy Abey is working on her second novel, which is a sequel to her first book. She lives in London and has a son and a daughter.

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