

Martin Wickramasinghe's famous trilogy is known as the Koggala Trilogy (or the Gamperaliya trilogy). It consists of three novels that trace the changing social structure of a southern Sri Lankan village.Trilogy BooksGamperaliya (The Village / The Uprooted, 1944)Yuganthaya (End of an Era, 1949)Kaliyugaya (Age of Destruction, 1957)

Piyal is a handsome young teacher who is hired to teach English to Nanda, a member of a high class family. They fall in love, but can't elope because Piyal is of a lower class. Nanda's parents instead push her into a marriage with Jinadasa, who is of the same class as them. With economic downturn in Sri Lanka, both families lose their status and Jinadasa leaves to try to make a better life for himself; he never achieves his goal and dies penniless. Piyal and Nanda can now finally come together. They have changed however, and the earlier idylic nature of their relationship is not recaptured.

Piyal and Nanda have now aged, and their children have left them. Priya reminisces on her life after her son sends her a letter from London accusing her and her husband of various faults.

Malin parts ways with his father Simon after realising that their ideologies do not match. While the father believes in using fear to control his employees, the son believes in equality and justice.