Shamel Jayakody and Chandrarathna Bandara
By Somasiri Munasinghe
Two writers who share their time between Colombo and Toronto have created history by entering the final rounds of the most prestigious annual literary awards in Sri Lanka.
One prize, Swarna Pushthaka or the Golden Book, has included civil engineer-turned-novelist Shamel Jayakody’s Mage Chicago Hadawatha (My Chicago Heart), journalist, author, and poet, and short story writer Chandrarathna Bandara’s Premanishansha (Aftermath of Love).
The same two novelists also feature in five books selected for the final round of the competition section of the Best Novel of the Year award organized by Sri Jayewardenepura University’s Faculty of Humanitarian and Sociology Science.
The other three finalists in both awards are veterans Sepali Mayadunne (Hin Dos Male), Keerthi Welisarage (Sandyananda) and Eric Elipparachchi (Nakulamuni).
What Jayakody and Bandara have achieved is an unprecedented literary history event of the South Asian nation and prestige to the Sri Lankan community living in North America.
Jayakody, who began her career in 2008 after graduating from Moratuwa University in 1999, has authored 14 novels, placing her at the forefront of the Sinhala women writers. Most of her books have become best sellers, with the record of being on the short-list for the Swarna Pushthaka award eight times, and her adorable fans everywhere keep their fingers crossed, hoping that she would this time break the jinx.
This year her Mage Chicago Hadawatha has been nominated for both awards. The novel revolves around a boy adopted by a childless Sri Lankan couple in the US.
Jayakody uses her North American experience to portray the Sri Lankan immigrants living too far from their roots and facing unfamiliar cultural and social stigmas. Three of her earlier novels were based in North America, while her Pransha Pemwatha (French Lover) concentrated on the struggles Sri Lankan refugees face in Europe. An English translation of this novel will soon be available on Amazon. A prolific writer, Jayakody, devotes her full time to writing, producing almost one book a year.
Her novel Veenasge Upatha (Birth of Venus) is being made into a television film in Sri Lanka.
For several weeks, Bandara’s sixth work of fiction, Premanishansha, remained on Sri Lanka’s best-seller list, generating a buzz on social media.
He has authored eight novels, five collections of short stories, and six poetry books, in addition to seven non-fiction works. He won the State Literary Award for his debut Meru in 1990 and D.R. Wijewardene Prize for Vanasapumala, translated into English by Vijitha Fernando as Hostage City and published with Canadian funds. The novel was translated into Tamil by S. Sivagurunathan.
Premanishansha is an epic novel about a third-generation descendant of a Sri Lankan Tamil scholar, mixing fact and fiction in equal measure to relive the glory of the island’s past through archeological discoveries and interactions between a young millennial couple of different ethnic roots. Bandara, who also dabbles in archeology, uses his real-life experience of participating in digs to portray the tender love story with the power to survive ethnic bigotry and prejudices.
His novel Wiman Dorakoda was made into a teledrama in Sri Lanka in the 90s.
Like Jayakody, Bandara used his personal experience to pen a novel about Sri Lankans living in North America. The work, Walakulu Bemma (Wall of Clouds), featured in the long lists of both Swarnapushthaka and the State Literary Prize for 2015.
Nil Katarol, a novel by Mohan Raj Madawala was on the long list for the Swarnapushtaka Award but failed to make it into the final five. Madawala, who visited Toronto to launch two of his English translations in 2018, has many fans in Canada.
Judging by the reviews, the quality of the works and the reputation of the writers, it is extremely difficult to guess a clear winner, but win or lose, Jayakody and Bandara have already created history. ©newstrails.com
