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| Sunday, 4 December 2005 |
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Features |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
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Portrait of an artist as a writer "The boy stood among the tangled weeds, facing the charred ruins of the house. A rambling rose clambered up the old fashioned porch..." so begins the short-story "Growing Up" by Ransiri Menike Silva (source; Sri Lankan Literature in English 1948-1998, edited by D. C. R. A. Goonetilleke). Four pages later the story ends with the lines "His mother called out to him that dinner was served, and he went out to join the others...His elder brother and sister were continuing an argument begun before dinner was announced.
He never spoke at meal times...Everything was the same as on any other day and the boy was surprised. Why! Nothing had changed at all! He exulted inwardly and deliberately kicked his sister under the table." This is just one story that illustrates the "many diverse creative interests that range from the domestic to the artistic" of Ransiri Menike Silva, who will be launching her first collection of short stories titled "The Seeing Eye", on December 7, 2005. Hailing from a literary family, being the younger daughter of late D. T. Devendra, the well-known scholar, educationist and writer, and sister of Tissa and Somasiri Devendra, Ransiri Menike Silva says, books played a major role in her family, "where reading...even grocery wrappings...took top priority". She considers herself privileged to have attended many schools in different parts of the country, mainly those in which her father taught, thereby getting the opportunity to associate closely with people with varying ethnic and social backgrounds. She believes these experiences have enriched her character and helped to create authentic backgrounds to the stories in "The Seeing Eye", which covers a variety of themes. Having taken to serious writing as a mother of three teenagers, today at the age of seventy as the grandmother of five grandsons, she says "The literary and artistic work of my grandsons whose ages range from 8 to 15, will be a special feature of "The Seeing Eye". (Aditha) |
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His younger brother complained about the choice of vegetables laid out
and was reprimanded by his mother. His father sat, silently consuming his
meal. 
