Sri Lankan Literature in English

(the paper presented at the XIV Comparative Literature Association of Indi. Maulana Azad National
Urdu University hyderabad)

daya dissanayake

Let me begin with a Sri Lankan poem.

In the evenings my father used to make me read

Aloud (from Macaulay, or Abbot's Napoleon he was short,
And Napoleon was his hero; I his hope for the future).
My mother, born in a village, had never been taught

The superior tongue. When I was six, we were moving

House, she called at school to take me away.
She spoke to the teacher in Sinhala. I sensed the shock
Of the class, hearing the servants' language; in dismay

Followed her out as she said, "Gihing ennang."

I was glad it was my last day there. But then the bell
Pealed: a gang of boys rushed out, sniggering,
And shouted in chorus, "Gihing wareng", as my farewell.

My mother pretended not to hear the insult.

The snobbish little bastards! But how can I blame
Them? That day I was deeply ashamed of my mother.
Now, whenever I remember, I am ashamed of my shame.

The title is Colonial Cameo.

Written in May 1989 by Regi Siriwardena.

Urbanised father, with an education from a Christian missionary school, expecting his son to do
even better. Village mother with only her Sinhala. The school children with their swollen egos. The
shame of shame.

The Sinhala term ‘Gihing ennang’ is a cultural trait, with the literal meaning ‘we will go and come’.
We never say we are going, because it sounds so final, so we say we will come again. ‘Wareng’ is
the derogatory term to summon a servant or a person of a low status. ‘Enna’ is the more decent
term, and ‘Wadinna’ is how we address Buddhist monks.

Sinhala and Tamil languages were used in the kitchen and with the servants and uneducated
workers. And then the term ‘Kaduwa’ or sword got into use by the Sinhala people to refer to
English, “as a weapon to cut them down, to intimidate and control them.” (Goonetilleke 2005).
Kaduwa was also used to cause self-injury by trying to speak in English.

All this happened due to the unfortunate socio-political upheaval in 1956. former Prime Minister S.
W. R. D. Bandaranaike, used the weapon of Sinhala Language to come to power. He convinced the
Sinhala community that all their suffering, and unemployment was because their mother tongue had
no place in administration, education and even business. He promised to make Sinhala the only
Official Language, and then made the next mistake of keeping the promise.

Students lost interest in studying English, thinking that they would never need it for their higher
education or for employment. Then the teachers lost interest in teaching the language. No one in the
government or the Ministry of Education thought at least to replace English with Tamil among the
Sinhala students and Sinhala among the Tamil students, as their second language.

We burnt the bridge linking our two ethnic communities. The whole country is still paying for this
idiotic decision. By the time the students realised the need for an international language to further
their education there was no one to teach them. The problem still continues. Several years ago the
Sri Lanka government was sending teachers to India, to Hyderabad, to learn teaching of English as
a second language.

“It has also destroyed the country’s education system. Today, none of our universities are ranked
universities. If we had stuck to English education, all our children would have studied in English
and there would have been no need to translate the higher education books into Sinhala language.”
(Prof. Rohan Gunaratna, who is also the Head of the International Centre for Political Violence and
Terrorism Researchi

The worst development was the ethnic war we all went through for thirty years. A totally
unnecessary war, because the basic difference between the Tamil Hindu and the Sinhala Buddhist
was the language. one Indo-Aryan and the other Dravidian.

Background

Asia would have been one land mass and South Asia is still part of it. Sri Lanka had been a part of
this land mass many millennia ago, and the last known separation had been around 70,000 years
ago. Even after that the sea was never a barrier, people from South Asia had been visiting,
migrating and settling down in Sri Lanka over the past 50,000 years and on a larger scale during the
past three or four thousand years.

Statistics show that the majority in Sri Lanka are Sinhala Buddhists, while we have the minorities,
Sinhala Christians, Tamil Hindus Christians and Buddhists, Eurasians and Sri Lankan Muslims. The
three languages in use are Sinhala, Tamil and English, with the Muslim community also speaking
and writing in Sinhala or Tamil. Though the major religion is Buddhism, our Sinhala Buddhists are
sometimes more Hindu than the Hindus themselves. The famous shrine at Kataragama to god
Skanda is visited by more Sinhala Buddhists. At every Buddhist temple in the country there are
shrines for gods Vishnu and Skanda, and the Buddhists also worship God Ganseh and goddess
Saraswathi. There are more Sri Lankan Buddhists, including politicians and cricketers, than Sri
Lanka Tamils, visiting Sri Venkateswara temple at Tirupati,. We also have several Buddhist temples
which are major shrines for goddess Kannaki, known as Pattini in Sri Lanka.

Our food habits have so much in common with India, mostly South India, with our coconut based
preparations, Indiappam, Appam, milk rice and many sweetmeats. This dress I am wearing was
adopted as the Sri Lankan national dress during the colonial era, as a reaction against the Western
attire, but you all know where it came from. For our ladies, the national dress is the saree.
The Sinhala language, which we believe is unique to us, probably is derived from ancient Prakrit,
and has so many words from Sanskrit, Pali, Tamil, Portuguese, Dutch and English. We will soon
have Chinese words. The Sinhala script looks similar to Thelugu at a distance.
So why do we have separate identities? We are one family, and we must get together and live as one
family. One of the best ways to understand, accept and live in harmony is through literature, and
that is why I accepted Prof. Anisur Rahman’s and Prof. Chandra Mohan’s kind invitation to attend
this conference. We have a language barrier, but we also have a bridge to cross the barrier through
the English language, even though it is alien to all of us.

One area where we have not felt the influence of India is English literature. Our Music, dance,
painting, and Sinhala literature have been heavily influenced by India. However our English writing
probably developed through the influence of British and American literature and to some extent the
English translations of European and Russian writing.

Literature

Our Sinhala literature goes back about two millennia. It is said that there have been 12 great poets
in the early first century of the Common Era. We had poets even among the common folk who
visited our 5th century rock citadel at Sigiriya. They wrote their poetry on the mirror-like wall on the
rock from about 6th to about 11th century, in such poetic language, some of which have been
categorised by the eminent archaeologist, Senerath Paranavithane, according to the four types of
poetry listed in the Kavi Sutra of the Buddhist Tripitaka. We had our short stories in the form of folk
tales, and then the Buddhist Jataka were re-written in Sinhala, some of which today could be
considered as short stories or even novels.

Yet the first published Sinhala novel had appeared only in 1886, Wasanawantha Paula ha
Kalakanni Paula (1866) (The fortunate family and the unforunate family) by Issac Silva. But many
consider Vimala (1892) by Albert Silva as the first Sinhala novel, Meena (1905) by Simon Silva
came next. Surnames like Silva, Perera, Fernando were all so common among the coastal Sri Lanka
community who adopted such names after the colonization by Europeans.

I consider D.C.R.A. Goonetilleke, as the best authority on Sri Lankan English Literature. He is
Emeritus Professor of English, University of Kelaniya, was Foundation Visiting Fellow, Clare Hall,
University of Cambridge; Henry Charles Chapman Visiting Fellow, University of London; and
Guest Professor at the University of Tubingen, West Germany. A well-established critic of
twentieth-century and postcolonial literature, and the leading authority on Sri Lankan English
literature, his books include Images of the Raj: South Asia in the Literature of Empire (1988),
Joseph Conrad: Beyond Culture and Background (1990), Salman Rushdie (2nd edn. 2010), all
published by Macmillan (London); Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (London: Routledge, 2007)
and Sri Lankan English Literature and the Sri Lankan People 1917-2003 (Vijitha Yapa, 2nd edn.
2007). He has edited Joseph Conrad: Heart of Darkness (Canada: Broadview Press, 2nd edn. 1999)
and Kaleidoscope: An Anthology of Sri Lankan English Literature Vols. 1 & 2
(Vijitha Yapa, 2007, 2010).ii

He has recorded that the first novel by a Sri Lankan in English was 'The Dice of the Gods' by
Lucien de Zilva in 1917. The first novel by a Sri Lankan woman writer was 'The Tragedy of a
Mystery: A Ceylon Story', published in London probably in 1928. 'Grass for my Feet' was a great
book written in 1935 by Jinadasa Vijayatunga. It is based around a small village by a sleepy river in
South Sri Lanka.
Among the international names from Sri Lanka we have Michael Ondaatje, who won the Booker in
1992 for his 'English Patient'. It was made into a film by Anthony Minghella in 1996 which won 9
Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Director. In 2018 Ondaatje was awarded the
Golden Man Booker prize. More recently Shehan Karunatilaka won the DSC and the
Commonwealth Writers Prize in 2012 for 'Chinaman', a book loved by the cricket fans around the
world. Among the International figures who have lived in Sri Lanka is Arthur C. Clarke.

A few years ago Namita Gokhale visited Sri Lanka. I admire her for the anthology she did with
Malshri Lal, 'In Search of Sita'. She also has been organizing the Jaipur Literary Festival, which
they describe as the 'greatest literary show on earth'. But Namita had no idea about the Sri Lankan
literature. She had heard of only Ondaatje and Shehan Karunatilleke. She had not heard of Martin
Wickramasinghe, our greatest writer of the 20th century, whose books have been translated into
English, Russian, Romanian, Japanese, French, Dutch, Chinese and Bulgarian. Only three of his
books have been translated into Tamil. Namita had not heard of Ediriweera Sarachchandra, either.

I am not going to talk about our diaspora writers, because they do not represent real Sri Lankan
culture or our people. I am only mentioning authors whose works are available in English.

We suffered an unfortunate 30 year war which ended in 2009. The world would have expected our
writers to create poetry and fiction based on the suffering of the people. The writers in the war
affected regions probably did not have the freedom to write what they wished. A few very good
poems and short stories have come out from Jaffna, since then, but hardly any long fiction. Some of
our diaspora writers had attempted to write about the war, but they had only second- or third-hand
information, and they also write to please the western reader.

To understand this war we need to search our past. There is a novel, 'When Memory Dies' written
by Ambalavaner Sivanandan, which traces the historical development of the conflict from the
colonial times. A book worth reading, which should have been translated into Tamil and Sinhala. A
more recent novel on the conflict is ‘Rails run Parallel’ by Ayathurai Santhan. There are several
non-fiction and autobiographical works, among them ‘In My Mother’s House: Civil War in Sri
Lanka’ by Sharika Thiranagama, who teaches anthropology at Stanford now. As a child she had to
see the terrorists kill her mother in front of their house, for the crime that she was married to the
Sinhala academic and she was a Human Rights activisit - Dr. Rajini Thiranagama who was Head of
the Anatomy Department, University of Jaffna.

Dr. Rajan Hoole published ‘The Broken Palmyra, The Tamil Crisis in Sri Lanka’ and ‘The Palmyra
Fallen’.

Before the ethnic war we also faced two uprisings in the south, in 1971 and 1988-89, among the
Sinhala youth, who were also labeled as terrorists. Many of our young, educated youth died in the
failed struggle.

Ediriweera Sarachchandra wrote a novel based on the first uprising of 1971, ‘Curfew and a Full
Moon’. There had been several good poems and short stories, and none of the Sinhala works have
been translated into English, to my knowledge.

A good novel covering the frustrations and violence among our youth was published a few years
ago by Madhubashini Disanayake Rathnayake, with the title, ‘There is Something I Have to Tell
You’. Madhubashini is now rewriting her novel, with several major changes, and this I believe is the
first such experiment in Sri Lankan literature where the author is rewriting a story.

The only Sri Lankan novel written about the British planters who ruled our tea estates is
‘Somewhere on the Green Hills’ written by Aditha Dissanayake, while Gopal Krishnan Gandhi
(grandson of the Mahathma) wrote ‘The Refuge’ about the pathetic story of the South Indian
workers taken to work on the Sri Lankan estates by the British.
Let me take a few minutes to talk about one of our bilingual writers, as an example of what you are
missing from Sri Lanka.

Sarachchandra

"Ediriweera Sarachchandra (1914-1996), a remarkable bilingual became the preeminent man of

letters in Sinhala as well as the leading novelist in English. He was Sri Lanka's most distinguished
man of letters and leading twentieth-century novelist in English.iii - D. C. R. A. Goonetilleke

In 1998 Prof. Ashley Halpe felt that Sarachchandra’s novel about the 1971 southern insurgency
'Curfew and the Full Moon' "could well be called the most important novel written in English, by a
Sri Lankan up to that time..…'. 'Foam Upon the Stream' was published in Singapore by Heinemann
for UNESCO under the 'Collection of Representative Works' in 1987, and the two Sinhala novels,
were translated into Japanese by Tadashi Noguchi. The novel was reviewed by Alan Moores for
Asiaweek in July 1987. Rajini Ramachandra reviewed 'Foam Upon the Stream' for The Literary
Criterion, a Mysore publication, in 1987.iv

Foam upon the Stream is also unique in a way because Sarachchandra changed the story from the
original Sinhala version, to the extent of changing the name and occupation of the protagonist.

Sarachchandra himself is reported to have been nominated in the 80s, for the Nobel Prize. "His
academic and creative talents were highly recommended by the special committee of the Swedish
Academy in 1972, by appointing him to nominate writers for the Nobel prize for literature in 1974.
(Sarachchandra was the 1st Sri Lankan to be honoured in that way)."v (Galahitiyawa P.B)

In 1996 he was awarded the Japanese decoration "The Sacred Treasure, Silver and Gold Star". The
Kerala state award, 'Mahakavi Kumaran Asan World Prize for Literature' was awarded to
Sarachchandra in 1981. "The Asan Memorial Association places on record its deep appreciation of
the great contribution made by him to the resurgence of Sri Lankan culture after the long dark night
of Western imperialist domination."vi He was awarded the Ramon Magsaysay Award in 1988.

But it is most unfortunate that Sarachchandra's books are not available in India. B. R. Publishing,
Delhi published his “With the Begging Bowl” in 1986. But I do not have any idea if it reached the
Indian readers. Penguin India published James Goonewardene and Carl Muller, OUP published
Patrick Fernado, Random House publishes Ashok Ferry, but I wish Indian publishers show more
interest in publishing the works of Sri Lanka writers. And none of the Indian book distributors and
book sellers have been interested in selling our books published in Sri Lanka.

I took much time about Sarachchandra just as an example of the non-availability in India of Sri
Lankan writings in English. It is the same for us in Sri Lanka, we do not have an opportunity to read
the new English writings from India. We are at the mercy of the book publishers and sellers. They
decide what they publish and sell, and thus decide what we should read.

Another author who should have been introduced to the world is Punyakante Wijenaike. She wrote
her first novel fifty years ago, and she continues writing. Her most recent book is the collection of
short stories and poems, 'When the Harvest is Over'. The harvest may be over for the season, but the
next season always brings a fresh harvest.

Punyakante Wijenaike published 'The Third Woman' in 1963. The 'Amulet' won the Gratiaen Prize
in Sri Lanka in 1994. She received the Commonwealth Short Story Prize for radio, in 1996, which
she shared with a writer from Sierra Leon. 'The Waiting Earth' was prescribed for GCE Advanced
Level Literature in 1993. 'Giraya' was adapted by Lester James Peiris as his first television drama in
1990.

Punyakante is one of the leading creative writers in English. About her first publication, 'The Third
Woman', Prof. D. C. R. A. Goonetilleke has commented, "In these stories she is preoccupied with
the countryside and surprises the reader with revelations of the darker side of rural life that lies
beneath a deceptively quiet surface." John Halverson had written "Like Villa Cather (with whom
she invites favourable comparison), she succeeds in universalizing completely provincial lives."
Prof. Goonetilleke writes about her first novel, 'The Waiting Earth' (1966), "...in the context of the
period it was written...is seen to occupy a place of importance in the history of the Sri Lankan novel
in English. There was very little by way of original writing in English at the time". Dr. Alistair
Niven (former Director of Literature at the Arts Council of Britain), wrote about Punyakante in
1977 in the Journal of Commonwealth Literature, "one of the most underestimated fiction writers
currently at work in the English Language". In 2007, Minoli Salgado said, "thirty years later she
still remains unknown in the West. Yet in her writing we find some of the most powerful registers of
the relationship between identity and place, belonging and homelessness in Sri Lankan Literature in
English." [all above quotations are from 'Sri Lankan English Literature and the Sri Lankan People'
by D. C. R. A. Goonetilleke]

We have to also mention Yasmine Gooneratne, Emeritus Professor of English at Macquarie

University, New South Wales, and Foundation Director of Macquarie’s Post Colonial Literature and
Language Research Centre, who does not belong to the diaspora now, as she has come back and
now lives in Colombo. She also won the Samvad India Foundation’s Raja Rao Award in 2001. her
16 books include novels, poetry and literary works such as ‘Celebrating Sri Lankan Women’s
English Writing’. She publishes the on-line journal New Ceylon Writing.vii Ysmine’s latest novel
‘Rannygazoo’ is a new experiment; she is sharing her novel on-line.

I have not come across any fiction in English, directly influenced by the Russian authors. But we
find Greek philosophy and mythology having a heavy influence on the poet Kamani Jayasekara,
who has merged Buddhist and Greek philosophy in her poetry very successfully.

We have many bilingual writers, both among the Sinhala and the Tamil community. Padma
Edirisinghe, Henry Jayasena and Tissa Abeysekara are no more with us. Prof. Sunanda Mahendra
and his son Sachitra Mahendra continue to write in Sinhala and English. Among the writers from
the north I must mention Sopa or Somasuntherampillai Pathmanathan who is a great writer of short
stories and poems. Sopa and Kandiah Shriganeshan are among the writers who are doing a
wonderful service by translating Tamil writing into English. Like Ayathurai Santhan, Pathmanathan
has first hand experience of the 30 years conflict period because they lived among the suffering
people in the north, unlike the diaspora writers, who write about their imaginary homeland.

Anne Ranasinghe, of Jewish-German origin, became a Sri Lankan award winning poet. Ranasinghe
began her writing career in the late 1960s after obtaining a Diploma in Journalism from Colombo
Technical College. Since 1971, she published 12 books and some have been translated into several
languages in seven countries.

We also have our Eurasians, called Burghers, and Carl Muller is one of the most well know and
prolific writers. Some of his works have been published by Penguin India. His ‘Burgher novels’
earned him a special acclaim. His books published by Penguin India include Yakada Yaka, Once
Upon a Tender Time, The Jam Fruit Tree, and Colombo.

I would like to touch on Literature for children. Very few books have been published in
English for our children. They are mostly dependent on books published in the west.
Unfortunately most of these books are full of violence or about misdeeds of human beings,
where child heroes catch the crooks or other criminals. There are only a very few books that
take a positive look at our society and culture and about good people, and their good deeds,
for the benefit of the young minds.

Sybil Wettasinghe is a great writer of stories for children, with her own illustrations; her
books have been translated into Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Swedish. and Norwegian. But in
India, some of them are available only in Tamil or English. Prof. J. B. Disanayake has
translated many of our folk tales into English.

Another award-winning writer is Kamala Wijeratne; her short stories, poems and children’s
stories, which I would call as writing for the Earth, creating awareness of our wonderful
natural heritage for the children. Writing about nature is really writing about ourselves, and
she is writing about all of us, in this collection, 'From My Green Book'. She may not consider
herself a feminist, just like Sarojini Sahoo in Odisha, but her collection, ‘This Other Trojan
Woman’, tells us the story of the suppressed woman ever since man took over control of the
family.

We do not have anything which could be labeled as Feminist Literature, probably because the
western concept of Feminism is alien to our culture where our village folk consider mother as
the Buddha at home.

In the recent past a few children have published their books.

Creative writing has no age barriers. Sajani Senanayake was 12 years old when she wrote ‘Gift of
Wonders’. It really offers hope for our literature and our culture. Many children and even many
adults would have faced the kind of human elephant encounter met by Sajani. Yet only a very few
could narrate the encounter in a manner to capture the readers’ interest and imagination. Two years
later she created The Pearl of Truth; she is able to share her belief that Truth is the most valuable
asset to any country.

Aminthika Dissanayake was 10 years old when she published her ‘Little Dreams.’ There
would be many other such talent among our children, around the world, if only we could keep
them away from visual and social media, and could encourage them to read.

I believe it is time for children to start reading again, and writing too, instead of playing violent
games on their mobile phones or dreaming about developing a new computer game.

It is ironic that in India the farming community belongs to the scheduled castes, while in Sri Lanka,
both among the Sinhalese and the Tamils, the farming community is the majority and also consider
themselves as the highest caste today, though a thousand years ago king Nissankamalla inscribed on
stone that a person of Govi caste should never aspire to be a king..

In Sri Lanka caste discrimination is practiced not only by Hindus but also by Buddhists, while in
India Ambedkar started the Navayana or Dalit Buddhist Movement to save the oppressed people.
"Although caste is in many respects less significant and less visible in Sri Lanka, compared to India,
some 90 per cent of the population in Sri Lanka recognizes it for some purpose at least. There are
three parallel caste systems in Sri Lanka: Sinhala, Sri Lankan Tamil and Indian Tamil....On the basis
of limited data available, this study estimated that about 20 to 30 per cent of people in Sri Lanka are
victims of CBD (Caste Based Discrimination) of one kind or another. "viii
However the caste issues are not reflected well in our literature, even in Sinhala. One problem is
that some writers do not wish to expose their caste identity by writing about their own caste, and
even if they write about the sufferings of another caste, the readers immediately consider the author
to belong to such a caste. It happened to several writers that I know personally. Thus we do not
have an equivalent to Dalit Literature.

The novel 'Kanal' by K. Daniel could be considered a Dalit novel from Sri Lanka. Daniel, who
belongs to the 'Turumbar' caste, the washermen for the washermen’s caste, in Jaffna exposes the
tragic conditions of the castes considered low or untouchable by the so-called higher castes. The
novel has been translated into English, 'Mirage' by Bishop S, Jebanesan and Richard Fox. ix
Prof. Karthigesu Sivathamby, who himself had faced caste discrimination in the Tamil community,
refused admission to several schools, had to seek his early education at a Muslim school. He wrote,
“ For the first time in Tamil literature, the victims of social oppression wrote about their sufferings,
their humiliations and deprivations. Tamil Nadu had to wait till the 1990s for Dalits to write about
themselves. In fact, K. Daniel, the eminent novelist who wrote Panjamar, is considered the
forerunner of Dalit writing.”

We have a few caste-based Sinhala fiction, which we could call Dalit Literature, by Tharaka
Wasalamudaliarachchi, and Mahinda Prasad Masimbula.

One reason for the caste issue to gradually disappear happened during the colonial period. The
Christian church considered all the people to be of equal status, though there are still instances of
caste discrimination even in the Catholic Church. Among the Buddhist monks, unfortunately there
is one sect very strict on caste identity, which is totally contradictory to the teachings of the Buddha.
Because of this several caste-based sects evolved among the Buddhist clergy in Sri Lanka.

Business opportunities during the colonial period also did not involve caste discrimination, and
some people became rich overnight by getting into lucrative businesses such as the sale of alcohol.
There is a very interesting book for anyone interested, by Dr. Kumari Jayawardane, ‘From
Nobodies to Somebodies;The Rise of the Colonial Bourgeoisie in Sri Lanka’.

Very few Sinhala or Tamil works have been translated into English. One reason is because of what I
mentioned earlier about the proficiency with the English language with a good literary style, and
also a thorough knowledge of the Sinhala or Tamil language.

During the colonial period we had to depend on Europeans to translate our literature. This was the
time when our Sinhala Buddhist elite learned their Buddhism from writers like Edwin Arnold and
Max Weber.

Mahavamsa, the Sri Lankan Pali chronicle, was unknown to the general public in Sri Lanka until
James Turnour published the first English translation in 1837. Wilhelm Geiger published the
German translation in 1912, which was translated into English by Mabel Haynes Bode, and revised
by Geiger. The complete Tripitaka was translated into English by T. W. Rhys Davids and C. A. F.
Rhys Davids in 43 volumes in the year 1900. Prof. Ranjini Obeysekare translated Saddharma
Rathnawaliya into English, Kav Silumina was translated by Prof. Vini Vitharana.

In fiction, Ediriweera Sarachchandra’s novels were translated into Japanese by Tadashi Noguchi.
Martin Wickramasinghe’s ‘Viragaya’ was translated into Japanese by Noguchi. ‘Gamperaliya’ was
translated into Russian, and ‘Madol Duwa’ into Chinese. Several books by Sybil Wettasinghe have
been translated into Japanese, Swedish, Danish, Dutch, Korean, Chinese, in addition to English and
Tamil.
Martin Wickramasinghe was a great writer of the 20th century, and his most famous work the
‘Gamperaliya’ trilogy was translated by his son Dr. Ranga Wickramasinghe, in collaboration:
Uprooted (with Dr Lakshmi de Silva), Age of Kali (with Aditha Dissanayake) and Destiny (with
Deenesha Wickramasinghe). All three translations won the State Award for the best translation of
the relevant year.

There are several other authors who should have been translated into English.

The best example for synesthetic experience in our country is from the works of Mahagama
Sekara, the poet, lyricist, artist, novelist and film director. A person who could appreciate all
the true wonders of nature and share his feelings with us in so many ways.

"starshine on the lake

disturbed by rain drops
mingles into soft music" (Prabuddha p.81)

"had I been an artist

I could have created a painting
of this whole world
to the rhythm she heard" (Nomiyemi, p.127)

both are my feeble attempt at translation.

Sekara has imparted to us some of this wonder, as we too can see from the paintings he had
done with his pen on paper when he wrote a poem, the visual images he created in his novel
Thunmanhandiya, long before we saw the film he created from it. We can hear the songs in
his prose writings in the same way. It has been called a "Union of the Senses".

There are two other writers that really should be translated, Simon Nawagattegama and
Sugathapala de Silva.

These are just a few examples of translations, which could keep us united, and they show the
important role to be played by translators. Until someday we could develop a universal language, a
Vishva Basha, we have to depend on translations, human or electronic, for communication. It is
only then that we can expect language to unite us.

Let me just add one translation to indicate what we are all missing.

This poem was originally written in Tamil by Prof. M. A. Nuhman, and the translation is by
Somasuntherampillai Pathmanathan

Murder
Last night
I dreamt
Buddha was shot dead
by the Police,
guardians of the law.
His body drenched in blood
on the steps
of the Jaffna Library
Under cover of darkness
came the ministers.
 “His name is not on our list,
why did you kill him?”
they ask angrily,
“No sirs, no,
there was no mistake.
Without killing him
it was impossible
to harm a fly –
Therefore… ,” they stammered.
“Alright, then
hide the corpse.”
The ministers return.
The men in civvies
dragged the corpse
into the library.
They heaped the books
ninety thousand in all,
and lit the pyre
With the Cikalokavadda Sutta.
Thus the remains
of the Compassionate One
were burned to ashes
along with the Dhammapada.

This poem tells us the dilemma of the Sinhala Buddhist community, believing in compassion and
loving kindness towards all life on earth, but trapped in a false religio-national political myth.
Prof. Nuhuman who was at Peradeniya University is not a Tamil, though it is written in Tamil, and
the Jaffna Library, which was a treasure house of knowledge, was in a predominantly Tamil area.
He is a Muslim by faith, but like most of the Muslim community in Sri Lanka, they use Tamil or
Sinhala as their first language.

Fate of English Literature

We do not have a Sahitya Akademy or any powerful organization to safeguard and uplift our
literature. The Ministry of Cultural affairs and the SAARC Cultural Centre, based in Colombo have
been almost totally inactive for the past several years.

On the positive side, we have the State Literary Awards for the best literary works in all three
languages, and awards for the best English Novel and best Translation by the Gratiaen Trust
established by Michael Ondaatje in 1993.

English Writers' Cooperative was set up in 1989, initiated by Anne Ranasinghe, Maureen
Seneviratne and Rajiva Wijesinha, as a voluntary organization to promote creative writing in
English and encourage new writers. The EWC magazine 'Channels' invites creative fiction, short
stories, poems, plays and translations from Sri Lankan writers. They are now on-line at
www.ewcchannels.com, as the First Web Journal in Sri Lanka for literature, where we can read all
the issues on-line.

It is an interesting fact that the Sri Lankan literature has been dominated by women, as we see the
membership of the EWC. This phenomenon extends to the Sinhala literary scene too.
One academic and poet I must mention is Dr. Lakshmi de Silva, the silent service she has rendered
to the Sri Lankan English literature is immense, by encouraging writers, both young and old, not
only her friends and collegues, but her students and even total strangers, by reading their works,
guiding them, reviewing them whenever she could find the time. In the words of the journalist
writer K. S. Sivakumaran, “A remarkable translator, teacher and a poet, in English and perhaps in
Sinhala too is the unassuming and scholarly Lakshmi de Silva.” She published only one collection
of poetry, Reflections. She published ‘12 Centuries of Sri Lankan Poetry’.

The reading habit is almost dead in our country. Most people do not even read newspapers.
They hear the newspapers as read by presenters on TV. Literary reviews have no place in
newspapers. There are no opportunities for young writers to have their works published.
Today no publisher in Sri Lanka would accept a book by a new writer, unless the author pays
the publishing cost. The first print of an English novel would be only about 500 copies, and
poetry and short stories about 250. Even a Sinhala novel would be only about a 1000 copies,
even though the Sinhala literate population is about 15 million.

Our publishers are not interested in publishing, promoting and marketing literary creations.
They have not made any attempt to take our books abroad, even to India, and the Indian book
distributors too have no interest in taking our books, even though many students in
universities are interested in South Asian Literature for their PG courses.

Further Reading

Gooneratne, Yasmine. 2002. Celebrating Sri Lankan Women’s English Writing Vol. II.
Women’s Education and Research Centre. Colombo

Goonetilleke, D. C. R. A. 2nd edition 2007. Sri Lankan English Literature and the Sri Lankan
People, 1917–2003. Vitjitha Yapa, Colombo

Goonetilleke, D. C. R. A. (ed.) 2007. Kaleidoscope : An Anthology of Sri Lankan English

Literature. Vitjitha Yapa, Colombo

Goonetilleke, D. C. R. A. (ed.) 2010. Kaleidoscope : An Anthology of Sri Lankan English

Literature. Vol. 2. Vitjitha Yapa, Colombo

Goonetilleke, D. C. R. A. (ed.) 2005. The Penguin Book of Modern Sri Lankan Stories.
Penguin India, New Delhi.

Goonetilleke, D.C.R.A. (ed.). 1992. The Penguin New Writing in Sri Lanka. Penguin India,
New Delhi.
i
http://www.ft.lk/opinion/Sinhala-Only-Act-destroyed-peaceful-Sri-Lanka--Prof--Rohan-Gunaratna/14-650183
ii
https://www.postcolonial.org/index.php/pct/about/editorialTeamBio/26
iii
http://www.literatureencyclopedia.com/public/tocnode?id=g9781405192446_chunk_g978140519244674_ss1-3
iv
Vol.xxii, No.3. A Dhvanyaloka publication
v
http://archives.dailynews.lk/2003/08/16/fea03.html
vi
quoted by Yasmine Gooneratne in 'The Thatched Patio' March/April 1993 p.36
vii
www.newceylonwriting.com
viii
http://idsn.org/wp-
content/uploads/user_folder/pdf/New_files/Publications_from_network/Caste_discrimination_and_social_justice_i
n_Sri_Lanka__IIDS_working_paper_.pdf
ix
http://www.sundaytimes.lk/170326/sunday-times-2/mirage-the-great-tamil-novel-of-our-time-233955.html