https://www.thehindu.com/books/sri-lanka-new-literary-voices-writers-debut-books-novels-war-society-politics/article68535824.ece
The past years have seen numerous Sri Lankan writers and those of Sri Lankan origin make their mark on the literary awards circuit. Recently, V.V. Ganeshananthan won the 2024 Carol Shields Prize for Fiction and 2024 Women’s Prize for Fiction for her novel Brotherless Night, which took 18 years to write. Australian-Tamil author of Sri Lankan Tamil heritage, Shankari Chandran, won the 2023 Miles Franklin Literary Award for her third novel, Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens, which is set in contemporary Australia and 1980s Sri Lanka; her first book Song of the Sun God is being adapted for television, starring Bridgerton’s Charithra Chandran.
Author V.V. Ganeshananthan | Photo Credit: Special arrangement
Shehan Karunatilaka’s Seven Moons of Maali Almeida won the 2022 Booker Prize, while his debut novel Chinaman: The Legend of Pradeep Mathew won the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature and the 2012 Commonwealth Book Prize. Vajra Chandrasekera’s debut novel The Saint of Bright Doors was recently awarded the Nebula award for best novel, Locus first novel award and 2024 Crawford award, and was shortlisted for a Hugo award. In 2021, Sri Lankan Tamil author Anuk Arudpragasam was shortlisted for the Booker Prize for his second novel A Passage North; previously, his first novel The Story of a Brief Marriage (2016), won the DSC Prize for South Asian fiction.
Sri Lankan author Anuk Arudpragasam | Photo Credit: Getty Images
Sri Lankans — both resident in the island and in the diaspora — have been telling their stories for decades, but when literature is shaped by the marketplace and writing is ascribed value by literary gatekeepers of the western world, perhaps the world hasn’t been ready to hear these stories.
“The idea that Sri Lankan creative writing in English has come into the spotlight only recently is possible only when we focus on the international awards Sri Lankan writers have been winning of late. But writers living in Sri Lanka, as well as diasporic authors have been writing for a long time,” says Neloufer de Mel, Senior Professor of English (Chair) at the University of Colombo. “What has happened now is that a generation of Sri Lankan writers, who are between 30 and 50 years of age, are writing on the Sri Lankan war, its society, and its politics in new ways and voices. They also belong to a more global generation with international links and so, have been successful in getting their work internationally published and in circulation. It is this generational shift that I think is important to mark, and what is exciting is their new voices, figurative imaginations, use of language, and the stories they tell.”
Writing as a team sport
In the 90s and early 2000s, writers such as Michael Ondaatje, Romesh Gunesekera, Shyam Selvadurai, Carl Muller and Michelle de Kretser were also successful in publishing internationally and reaching wider audiences. Currently, Yudhanjaya Wijeratne, Amanda Jayatissa, Nizrana Farook, Thushanthi Ponweera and Shyala Smith are among the new crop of writers making their mark in science fiction, thriller, and children’s writing, internationally. Their books display inventiveness in form and explore a variety of themes drawing from Buddhist mythology, Sri Lanka’s socio-political history, its civil war and more.
Author Shehan Karunatilaka | Photo Credit: Special arrangement
“I think it is always nice when writing — which can be very solitary — becomes more of a team sport where you are able to cheer for other people who are interested in the themes, ideas, people and communities that you are, and who have their own approaches and language and energy that they’re bringing. It just makes the conversation so much more interesting and exciting and less lonely. I think it’s the beginning of great things, hopefully, to come for writing connected to Sri Lanka and I hope that it will expand so that those who are working in Sinhala and Tamil also get more of the spotlight because I know remarkable work has been taking place in these languages for a really long time,” says novelist Ganeshananthan, who is based in the U.S.
Author Thushanthi Ponweera | Photo Credit: Special arrangement
While writing and publishing in English remains a niche market in Sri Lanka, the country has a long literary tradition of Sinhala and Tamil writing. Although there has been little overlap in recent years, there are ongoing efforts to encourage translations and cross-pollination between the three languages. “Translations are very important because this is the way you get to read each other’s work, particularly in monolingual societies as in Sri Lanka. There are very few people who work in literary translation here and this is a great setback. The Gratiaen Trust has offered the H.A.I. Goonetilleke Prize for translation of creative writing from Sinhala and Tamil into English since 2003 to encourage such translations,” says de Mel, former chair of the Gratiaen Trust. “University departments of English and Sinhala have also added translation, either as a course or module, into their curricula in Sri Lanka. These are good initiatives, but we need a concerted effort to encourage and train more literary translators because this is a special field in its own right.”
Author Shankari Chandran | Photo Credit: Special arrangement
Long road to publishing
While there is a welcome spotlight on stories about Sri Lanka, the road to publication remains long. In interviews, author Karunatilaka has spoken of the struggle to get Seven Moons published. It was seen as a ‘difficult’ book by many — the only publisher willing to take it on was an independent firm, Sort Of Books, based in the U.K.
Author Yudhanjaya Wijeratne | Photo Credit: Special arrangement
In 2022, Sri Lanka faced its worst economic crisis since independence, and is currently rebuilding from the aftershock. In a bid to increase government revenue, the state has imposed taxes on previously exempt industries such as publishing. For writers based in Sri Lanka, this is yet another challenge to overcome. “The price of books [fiction] is exorbitant, so writers find it hard to access contemporary fiction. Writers need to read and when a country levies high taxes on books, it dampens critical thinking and creativity,” says Ramya Jirasinghe, who recently won the 2023 Gratiaen prize for her unpublished novel, Father Cabraal’s Recipe for Love Cake.
A generation of Sri Lankan writers, who are between 30 and 50 years of age, are writing on the Sri Lankan war, its society, and its politics in new ways and voices. | Photo Credit: Getty Images
But for many Sri Lankan writers, the recent spotlight on Sri Lankan stories is encouraging. “If you accept how small this country is, how small our reading/writing population in English is, and how hard it is for local writers to access resources, what is happening now is groundbreaking. Shehan and Ashok [Ferrey] have broken into global markets becoming trailblazers for others and have shown that it can be done from Sri Lanka,” says Jirasinghe. “Sri Lanka is very unique even within South Asia, which means that our stories really must leave these shores and encounter readers from around the world.”
The writer is based in Colombo.
Published – September 13, 2024 01:46 pm IST