Sybil Wettasinghe and her record-making book
Sybil Wettasinghe, Sri Lanka’s internationally-known children’s story writer and illustrator has entered into Guinness Book of World Records for a book with the most number of alternate endings.
The 92-year-old grandmother of five who has shaped the imagination of four generations threw a challenge to her young readers to write an end to her story titled Wonder Crystal using their creativity.
A total of 20,000 endings were received, and 1200 best entries were featured in a printed version to coincide with the World’s Children’s Day last October.
Her original story began like this: A princess comes to our world, and unfortunately, her wonder crystal falls into the water and disappears. She begins to cry, and two kids who hear her weeping comes to her aid. She relates how she lost the ball. One child jumps into the water and finds her magical crystal. She promises to give anything they want, but they have only three wishes…
Sybil, who was the first Sri Lankan woman to work full-time as a journalist, has published about 200 children’s storybooks, some of which have been translated into languages like Tamil, Danish, Japanese, Chinese, Swedish, Dutch, Vietnamese and Norwegian.
It all began with Kuda Hora (Umbrella Thief), a narrative she developed for the popular Sinhala eveninger Janata in 1952. Later the story was published as a book laying the foundation for her prolific career. Her tales rooted in Sri Lankan simple village life has also cornered a sizeable market in the US by becoming the first Asian children story writer to be published in America.
In 1992 Japan honoured Sybil with a prestigious award to recognize her services. Kuda Hora was published in Japan in 1986. Another series of books about a humorous, crafty jackal, Hoity the Fox has become a sensation in Japan. Kuda Hora was honoured with the Best Foreign Book Award in Japan in 1986, and in 1987 it won the Japanese Library Association Award for the most popular children’s book.
Sybil, who learnt to draw as a four-year-old kid on the sand with sticks, cites her father as the primary influence of her career.
“Soon after I was born, my father had met an astrologer to check my birth time. He has told him to treat me as a boy, not as a girl, and I will be world-famous one day. Soon he grew so fond of me, and he was the first one to inspire me with his village tales mimicking birds, animals and devils”.
Sybil, who was never trained in arts, drew from her memory and her first ‘art exhibition’ was when she was four years old.
“My family white-washed the home in preparation for the Sinhala New Year in April. I woke up in the morning and saw this beautiful blank wall. I could not hold back my temptation. I went to the kitchen, picked up a charcoal and drew an illustration from wall to wall. My father carried me to the kitchen laughing and asked my mother to have a look at the wall. She began wailing after seeing what I did as I ruined a few days of her hard work, but my neighbours came to the house and appreciated my painting. That was my first art exhibition.”
She began her career at Lankadeepa published by Times of Ceylon Group and later joined the Lake House and wrote stories and drew illustrations for Sinhala and English newspapers. It was at Lake House that she met her husband, Dharmapala Wettasinghe, a senior journalist.
“My husband was another influence in my career. He looked at my creations with a critical eye and always helped me to develop my craft,” she says, remembering her late husband.
Sybil’s memoir, The Child in Me, won the Gratian Award in 1995. The award was launched in 1992 by Sri Lankan-born Canadian novelist Michael Ondaatje to develop English writing in Sri Lanka with the money he received as the joint-winner of the Booker Prize for his novel The English Patient.
Sybil who rebelled against her mother’s wishes to train her as an architect and achieved her life’s passion, is still not willing to rest of her laurels at 92.
The artist whose career spanned four generations, remember the great Sinhala writer Martin Wickremesinghe with gratitude. He asked her to draw illustrations for several of his books, including his classic collection of short stories Ape Gama (Our Village).
“I was in my twenties when I met him. He offered me money for my illustrations but I refused. He praised my work invoking the blessings of Sakra, the God of Art, who drew the rabbit on the face of the moon according to our mythology. I think his blessings are still helping me to achieve what I want to do in life.” – newstrails.com
