Category Archives: literary achievements

December 20, 2013 · 11:53 pm

A Tamil Refugee and Activist moves literary

Thulasi Muttulingam in http://eyeofthecylone.wordpress.com/2013/02/13/book-review-lost-in-you-by-dr-noel-nadesan/

When it comes to writings by Sri Lankan authors, quite a large proportion of it is diasporic writing. Perhaps there is something to be said for the theory of inner or outer tumult giving wings to the creative muse. Without a doubt, Sri Lankans who have uprooted as well as re-rooted themselves all over the globe have had to experience a lot of both; inner as well as outer turmoil that is.

lost in youWhether they be Sinhalese, Tamil, Muslim or Burgher, a deep-seated search for meaning, identity and a sense of belonging has been set in motion by the various upheavals to their inner psyche as well as outer circumstances. This has in turn given rise to a plethora of writings that an audience back home are just beginning to discover. Continue reading →

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November 11, 2013 · 2:00 pm

An evening with Leonard Woolf in 1960 … with further reflections

Neville's photoNeville Jayaweera, reprinted from Sunday Island, 7 August 2005

Obsequious ceremonial: Upon Woolf’s arrival in Ceylon in early 1960 (he was 80 years old then) the Home Ministry arranged for him to tour the districts in which he had served as a Civil Servant. One leg of the tour took him through Hambantota, Tanamalwila, Wellawaya, Bandarawela, Welimada and Nuwara Eliya. At that time I was the AGA of the Badulla District which covered the entire route, and my GA was V. A. J. Senaratne  (Vicky) one of the most brilliant minds of the Civil Service — Physics First Class, and first in the CCS exam in his year, but for all that, utterly self effacing and therefore little known to the public.

leonard woolf 11Shelton Fernando, Permanent Secretary Home Affairs, sent Senaratne an exuberant missive instructing him and his AGA (myself) to meet Leonard Woolf at the boundary of the Badulla District, which was near Tissamaharama, a hundred and four miles away, escort him through the district and after a stopover at Bandarawela for the night, hand him over to the GA of Nuwara Eliya District. Though self effacing, Senaratne  did not take kindly to obsequious ceremonial, and showing me Shelton Fernando’s letter, said that he was not prepared to sit out in his car on the roadside waiting for Woolf or for anyone else and inquired whether I would do the honours. Much to my GA’s chagrin I assured him that neither was I inclined to be honoured in that fashion. So, eventually we compromised and agreed that we would both meet Woolf halfway at the Koslanda Rest House and accompany him to Bandarawela. Continue reading →

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November 4, 2013 · 10:53 am

A South Asian Archival Treasure Trove in Digital Form: Hip, Hip, Hooray!

David Arnold, whose title is more restrained in South Asian History & Culture

The publication of the South Asia Archive creates a vast new digital resource for students and scholars of the South Asia region. Ranging very widely across the arts, humanities and social sciences, and also notably incorporating science, technology and medicine, the Archive incorporates extensive visual material and ephemera as well as sample text material from a huge array of published sources, from books, magazines and journals to dictionaries, institutional reports and committee proceedings. Although the Archive does not provide a complete set of many serials and multi-volume items, it does demonstrate the richness and diversity of readily searchable South Asia materials (especially for the period 1800–1950) and should serve to encourage and inform fresh research in several important areas. Continue reading →

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October 16, 2013 · 9:45 am

Christopher Ondaatje’s journeys with Woolf in contemporary Ceylon

Gamini Seneviratne reviewing Christopher Ondaatje: Woolf in Ceylon … taken  from The Island, 17 May 2006

Gamini Seneviratne

Gamini Seneviratne

This book runs to over 300 pages–room enough for Christopher Ondaatje to touch on virtually every aspect of Leonard Woolf’s life and work. It would of course be possible to pursue each of them towards a clearer understanding of both (author and subject). In a review of this kind, though, a consideration of what appears to be the author’s view of what Woolf experienced here and in England must suffice.

CHRIS ON 122 It is embellished by many photographs, most of them truly excellent. Some have been drawn from the archives of the Royal Geographical Society and the University of Sussex, many are of Ondaatje’s own making. The author has been to a great deal of trouble researching the people and places mentioned by Woolf in his writings on / from Ceylon: ‘The Village in the Jungle’, ‘Stories from the East’, his letters and ‘Growing’ the segment of his autobiography that covers his stay here, and his ‘Diaries’ as Assistant Government Agent, Hambantota. The writing is lively and lucid, perhaps less so here than in ‘The Man-eater of Punani’; a selection of the photographs in both books merit publication in a separate portfolio. Continue reading →

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October 16, 2013 · 8:27 am

Chandani Lokuge: how she works

Sachitra Mahendra, in the Daily News, 16 October 2013, where the title is “Not ‘poetry’ nonsense…”

CHANDANI 22Playing with words is not everyone’s premises. Only a few could make reading a hobby. Writing is confined to an even lesser crowd. When it comes to writing too, everybody cannot do it strikingly. Not every written piece would make waves. Well, everyone cannot be a wordsmith! There is a term for beautiful writing in French: belles lettre. That is why Professor Chandani Lokuge’s narrative style deserves a benevolent gaze. Three novels so far under her belt (and one short story collection), Lokuge does not trek the trendy path. One would easily feel spent to read a few pages of a novel by her. That’s no easy read, of course, it requires reading between lines — patience, in other words. But it is not short of breath, not short of life. That’s all in, brimming with breaths. Continue reading →

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Filed under Australian culture, cultural transmission, female empowerment, heritage, life stories, literary achievements, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society

September 11, 2013 · 9:15 am

Sandēsa Poems across the Palk Straits

I: Anoma Pieris: “Avian Geographies: An Inquiry into Nationalist Consciousness in Medieval Lanka,” South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, 33: 3, 336—362…..presented here as Abstract….

ANOMA PierisDoes the concept of a bounded national geography predate modernity and colonization in South Asia? Does it carry with it particular internal processes and prejudices that have withstood decolonization? Was it produced through an urban imagination? Continue reading →

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August 21, 2013 · 3:35 pm

Jean Arasanayagam: Poet, Author, Activist

Sarah Hannan, in the Sunday Leader, 7 July 2013

arasanayagam-4co copy “We’ll all become spinners of endless sagas which we read in the silence of our eternal loneliness. We inhabit the world of exile, which lies within the Babylon of ourselves” – Jean Arasanayagam.  Dr. Jean Arasanayagam – is a renowned poet and author who has contributed immensely towards the English Literature circuit in Sri Lanka for over four decades. Having written poetry, prose and short stories in English she is celebrated by literati around the world and was recently honoured with a doctorate in letters by the Bowdoin College, USA. Joining In Conversation Dr. Arasanayagam shares her life as a person of letters and art. Having been a voice for the people who silently suffered the hardships of war, the writer asked her, what changes she sees in the society three years into peace and reconciliation under one flag. Continue reading →

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August 17, 2013 · 5:23 am

Shulman’s Exploration of the Imagination in the South Indian Cultural World

Steven P. Hopkins, … a longer version of a review in South Asian History and Culture, vol. 3, no. 4, July 2013, pp. 424-26 (see below)

Coming away from a close reading of this remarkable book one cannot help feeling much like the bemused lover in Ativīrarāmaṉ’s 16th century Tenkasi Tamil poem on the tale of Nala and Damayantī.  The goose messenger has just described in vivid imaginative detail the body of Nala’s beloved, almost placing her “before his very eyes,” when he wonders aloud: “Seeing through the mind [thought, imagination] of a true friend is really seeing (mēyt tuṇaiyār karunttiṉāṟ kāndale kāṇṭa)” (186). Seeing the histories of South Indian literatures through the singularly perceptive and creative mind of David Shulman is, indeed, “really seeing.”  And what we have before our eyes in Shulman’s seeing is an exhaustive and deeply nuanced work of scholarship on the nature of the “imagination” in India.

david_shulman_na_web David Shulman Continue reading →

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August 13, 2013 · 2:28 am

Lanka Nesiah passes away: LANKA loses a perceptive scribe and ecumenical patriot

A Tribute in Colombo Telegraph, with title “No more Shanie column”

Lankanesan-NesiahColombo Telegraph is sad to announce the death yesterday (Aug. 11) in London of one its recent and most respected columnists, Lankanesan Nesiah. As a writer he used the pseudonym Shanie, a pseudonym derived from all six letters of his surname Nesiah, saying he did not wish to be “white-vanned.” His precision and the use of language through elegantly employed turns of phrase, were clearly from his father, Kunasekaram Nesiah. who was Head of the Department of Education at Peradeniya and, as a school boy at St. John’s, the proud recipient of the runner-up prize for essay writing in the British Empire. Continue reading →

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July 16, 2013 · 12:04 am

Vijitha Yapa: Journalist, Editor, Bookseller, Publisher

Ishara Jayawardane, courtesy of The Daily News, 22 January 2013

YAPAFrom the most humble of beginnings ending up as one of the most influential people in Sri Lanka, Vijitha Yapa’s is a success story. He has been a leading journalist and editor and is now a publisher. Vijitha Yapa is a well known name in Sri Lanka being the Founder, Chairman, and Managing Director of the largest English bookstore chain in the country. Reminiscences of Gold spoke to Vijitha Yapa about his life experiences and achievements.  “I was born in a small village called ‘Waralla’ which is in the Southern Province; a little village between Kotapala and Morawaka on the Akursssa-Deniyaya road. My father was a tea planter and he was also Chairman of the Village Council. One of the things that he insisted was that we all go to school in the village and that is an experience I treasure very much. He had 10 children and all of us went to this school and the early part of our childhood was spent there. The whole school had only one building and all the classes were held there. We had long desks and benches and next to me was a boy whose father was the peon in my father’s office. It gave us a tremendous introduction to life and an ability to understand people. My father said that we should never forget our roots in the village. Continue reading →

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