The trilogy consists of the following I - Gamperaliya, The Village; II - Kaliyugaya, The Village and the City; III - Yuganthaya, The City. The first novel depicts the crumbling of traditional village life under the pressure of modernisation. The story of a successful family in a Southern village is used to portray the gradual replacement of traditional economic and social structure of the village by commercial city influence. Yuganthaya and After the decay of traditional life, the story details the rise of the bourgeoisie, with its urban base and entrepreneurial drive, ending with the formation of the labour movement and socialist theology and rise of hopes for a new social order.

This is considered Wickramasinghe's extension to his much acclaimed novel The Uprooted and discusses the urbanisation of the new independent Ceylon