500th Anniversary (Quincentennial) of Thomas More’s Socialist Utopia

Laksiri Fernando, author of Thomas More’s Socialist Utopia and Ceylon (Sri Lanka), wrote from Australia for the Sri Lanka Guardian.

"I only had the present serendipity recently, after retirement from university teaching and when I was carefully going through Book I where it explains the main protagonist, Raphael Hythloday’s visit to Ceylon, perhaps as a hidden indication. Thereafter, all the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle started to form into its proper place. It is not the mere mentioning of the visit to Ceylon that made me think that More took information about Ceylon to work out his imaginary island of Utopia. Many similarities exist between Utopia and Ceylon of that time in terms of the size, location, historical legend, family and social customs including some religious practices."