Narendrarajah Sivasambu (1928-2022), known as Nathan or Siva, was born in 1928 into a distinguished Ceylonese family whose heritage in trade and learning instilled in him a deep respect for culture and intellect. Educated at the Royal College in Colombo and the University of Ceylon, he developed a lifelong fascination with philosophy and literature, particularly the writings of Leonard Woolf, whose years in Ceylon left a profound mark on Nathan’s imagination. The values of the Bloomsbury circle — rationalism, humanism, and creative inquiry — resonated strongly with him, shaping both his scholarly and personal pursuits.

When Nathan arrived in London in the late 1950s to study under A.J. Ayer at University College London, he chose to live in Tavistock Place, near the Woolfs’ former home in Bloomsbury. Immersed in this intellectual heartland, he became a fixture at institutions such as the British Museum, the British Library, and SOAS, where he researched Sri Lankan history and culture. His flat, overflowing with books and papers, reflected a mind devoted to ideas and a life spent in conversation with the past.

In the 1960s, Nathan founded the Ceylon Bloomsbury Group — a gathering of Sri Lankan writers, artists, and intellectuals in London who met to discuss art, politics, and literature. Members included Romesh Gunesekera, the Sri Lankan-born novelist, Rohan de Saram, the celebrated Sri Lankan-British cellist, as well as various Sri Lankan academics, poets, and artists, including Ivan Peries, who gifted this painting to Nathan in 1985, which hung in his Bloomsbury home for 40 years until his death in 2022.