Formation of modern Sinhala fiction
In the previous week’s column, I discussed, briefly, on
post-independent Sinhala writers and Piyadasa Sirisena who is considered
as the father of modern Sinhala fiction although his literary works are
full of didactic passages enunciating his political and moral views on
social issues.
Prof. Ariya Rajakaruna, a friend of mine and reader of Montage, has
rightly pointed out a factual error in the previous column regarding
Piyadasa Sirisena’s literary career. Prof. Rajakaruna has stated that
Piyadasa Sirisena commenced his literary career before Sri Lanka gained
political independence and therefore, he belonged to the pre-independent
Sinhala writers. I am thankful to Prof. Rajakaruna for pointing out the
factual error and profoundly regret for the mishap.
The pivotal role that pre-independent Sinhala writers played in the
formation of modern Sinhala fiction is vital to the understanding of the
evolution of Sinhala language itself. Piyadasa Sirisena’s fiction can be
identified as the transitional stage of Sinhala from medieval classical
prose to a literary language with some elements of embellishments.
Prof. Wimal Dissanayake in ‘Sinhala Novel and Public Sphere’ points
out that there are five key Sinhala writers who played an important role
in the formation of modern Sinhala fiction; “ One can identify five
writers as key players in the inauguration of Sinhala fiction, although
some of their earlier works represent a transitional phase between prose
narrative and modern fiction. The five writers are Reverend Issac de
Silva (1844-1907), Bentota Albert de Silva (1886-1919), A. Simon de
Silva (1874-1920), M.C.F Perera (1879-1946) and Piyadasa Sirisena
(1875-1946).
Piyadasa Sirisena and early Sinhala fiction
Piyadasa Sirisena’s literary career is important on many counts;
Piyadasa Sirisena’s nineteen novels mark the early phase of Sinhala
fiction. Sirisena’s work is a precursor to the modern Sinhala novel. It
is pertinent to look at his life and the milieu he lived in, which
largely reflected in his corpus of works.
Piyadasa Sirisena was born on August 31, 1875 in the village of
Aturuvalla, hamlet near Induruwa. As it was the vogue of the day, his
would have been given an English name at birth. So his name at birth was
Pedrick de Silva. He attended the village school and then the Buddhist
temple in the village and attended a missionary school in Aluthgama
where he commenced his learning of English. Looking at his childhood, it
was clear that Piyadasa Sirisena developed a keen interest in
literature.
Prof. Wimal Dissanayake observes, “In 1893, wrote his first book, a
volume of poetry titled Ovadan Mutuvala. Two years later when he came to
Colombo in search of employment, he published this book. In 1904, he
started publishing in installments in the newspaper Sarasavi Sandarasa,
his first novel Vasanavanta Vivahaya Hevat Jayatissa Saha Roslin. This
later became an exceedingly popular fiction. Since then, he continued to
writing fiction that had an enormous impact on the thought and
imagination of his time. In 1905, the newspaper Sinhala Jathiya was
inaugurated as a weekly. He became its editor. This newspaper played a
crucial role in mobilising people behind anti-colonial project of the
time. As a consequence of fierce anti-colonial statements in the
newspaper, and the speeches he made at public meetings, he was
imprisoned by the British administration in 1915. He spent 58 days in
prison, and during this period he wrote his novel, Ashta Loka Dharma
Chakraya. As a novelist and nationalist, he had a profound impact on the
masses. He saw the novel as an efficacious medium for generating and
giving focus to anti-imperialistic sentiments and cultural
nationalism…He died on May 22, 1946 at the age of 71 after surgery at a
private hospital.
During his 88 year that Sirisena was actively involved in the writing
of fiction, he produced 19 novels. ”
An important facet of Piyadasa Sirisena’s novels, at the early phase
of Sinhala novel, is that provided the rudimentary foundation for modern
Sinhala novel. A prominent characteristic of Sirisena’s novels is their
crude form with a little or no tropes, diverse embellishments and
vividly realised narrative which are hallmark characteristics of his
successors’ literary works such as W.A Silva’s and Martin
Wickremasinghe’s literary productions. At Sirisena’s hand, the novel
functioned primarily as a mode of addressing the masses and offering
them his political and social views on the issues at the time.
Describing this aspect of Piyadasa Sirisena’s works, Prof. Wimal
Dissanayake observes, “Piyadasa Sirisena made no attempt to conceal the
fact that in writing fiction his primary aim was didactic –to focus on
what he perceived to be the moral decline visibly in the country. He
attributed this to the steady and thoughtless departure from traditional
Sinhala Buddhist cultural values. Hence, through his plot and
protagonists, he sought to call attention to the imperative need for
national cultural revival.
In his preface to the novel, Yantham Galavuna he states that although
his works go under the sign of novel, there is nothing in them that goes
beyond religious thinking. In his preface to the novel, Maha Viyavula,
he makes the point that in writing his novels his intention is to
promote nationalist thought and patriotism. In the preface to
Vimalatissa Hamuduruvange Mudal Pettiya, he remarks that it had occurred
to him for a long time that fiction was a great means of disseminating
ideas related to politics, economic development, morality, patriotism
and so on. In his preface to the novel Tharuniyakage Premaya, he states
that this novel was written with the aim of demonstrating the importance
of fostering morality and nationalism. Hence, it is obvious that
Piyadasa Sirisena envisaged his novels to be a means to a larger end-the
generation of a sense of cultural nationalism and concomitant moral
regeneration. Piyadasa Sirisena can be best described as a novelist of
advocacy…his primary focus was on the promotion of cultural nationalism
as a way of regaining self-esteem and re-possessing history. In order to
achieve this goal, he deals with number of overlapping themes in his
fiction. ”
A brief study of pre-independent and post-independent Sinhala writers
and their primary motives for fiction writing is of utmost importance to
understand and to analyse some of the so called ‘great’ Sinhala writers
of today who primarily promotes their ‘literary’ works at international
literary festivals such as recently concluded HSBC Galle Literary
Festival.
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