This book is the outcome of the Felicitation Symposium held in December 1999, to felicitate Hector Abhayavardhana and acknowledge his place as the leading left thinker of his time in Sri Lanka. This book reflects Abhayavardhana's political and intellectual interests, and defines the contributions to this volume. The proceedings of the Symposium have been edited and presented to us in a single volume. This volume serves three purposes. Firstly it takes us through the Symposium, enabling us to participate in a lively exchange and debate that encompassed both national and international issues. Secondly, it provides us with a set of presentations made by the more agile minds among both our young, as well as our established thinkers. And thirdly it takes us on a biographical journey where we can observe the ideological wrangling of not just Hector Abhayavardhana, but that of an entire generation of committed young activists, who on the eve of independence from Britain, seriously addressed the issue of what kind of Sri Lanka we should have in the aftermath of colonial rule.