Ideas, not power, rule the world

Her literary work applies to all the generations:

Reminiscent of her idealistic days in Peradeniya campus where she was in the same batch with Dr. Sarath Amunugama, Sita Kulatunga states that her interest in creative writing was stirred by late Prof. Ediriweera Sarachchandra.

Prof. Sarachchandra had conducted a class for literary criticism where students were encouraged to write short stories and other forms of creative writing which were read and discussed there.

One of the peculiar aspects of Sita Kulathunga's career is that she has been a bilingual from her university days. Quite frankly she acknowledged that she learnt of intricacies of literature through Sinhala medium.

And it was Prof.Sarachchandra's so called "Creative Class" that students' short stories were subject to criticism at the hand of Prof. Sarachchandra often with satirical remarks.

It was this initiation that subsequently became a life-long pursuit, marking her name in Sri Lankan literary landscape as one of the formidable bilingual writers.

Following her studies at the University of Peradeniya, her literary activities expanded gradually with her extensive reading of English and Sinhala fiction as well as other works. She made it her habit to purchase Sinhala and English novels.

For a short stretch, she worked at a publishing house, Lake House Investments. In the course of her work, she encountered large number of writers who wrote in both Sinhala and English media. Among them were a couple of foreign writers.

From this point onwards, her life became very busy with mundane concerns taking precedence over her literary activities. This was a blank period for creative writing and much time had to be spent on caring and rearing her children. This period, a kind of literary vacuum for Sita, lasted for over a decade when she commenced her writing in English.

One of the first short stories she wrote in English was "The High Chair". To her amazement, it became an instant success. The short story was so appealing to the English readership that has already been rendered into diverse languages including German and Japanese.

Apart from its success which brought her fame and earned a name as an established author, it also encouraged her to more and more immerse in her literary work and she is quite fond of writing about rural life. One of the reasons that prompted her to write on themes drawn from rural Sri Lanka was her intimate knowledge of rural life.

The most appealing incidents also provide her subject matter for writing. "High Chair" won that year's jury's award for the best short story. As she is an accomplished writer in Sinhala, question at the tip of many readers' lips was that why she wrote the story in English. However, it was a spontaneous flow of thoughts in English which ultimately made the short story 'The High Chair'.

One of the turning points in her literary career was her days spent in Nigeria as a teacher. Apart from exposing her to a new culture where polygamy is the order of the day, the assignment gave her ample spare time for creative writing. It would have been a most profitable period for her in terms of literary work.

What attracted her to Nigerian life were the polygamous marriage and the infrastructure which facilitated it. She noticed bright female students, stopping schooling following their marriage with wealthy businessmen. She wrote her, perhaps, most cited novel "Dari the third wife" while being there.

Though many critics questioned whether she had intended to highlight gender issues as the focal point, her intention was to reflect the polygamous marriage and life, especially for women in Nigeria.

By that time, she had travelled a lot and seen the kind of life Sri Lankans lead in their adapted countries. It is not a secret that the prime objective of most of the Sri Lankans domiciled abroad is to provide their children with a qualitative education which they could not find in Sri Lanka. She has also seen most of Sri Lankans achieved their goals in their adapted countries.

Sita recalls that this exposure prompted her to turn her attention onto diasporic writers such as Michael Ondatje, Shyam Selvadurai and Romesh Gunasekara. Though there are quite a number of Sri Lankan writers in English now, those days there were very few.

Speaking of her present engagements, she is currently working on narrative film script. She considers writing a film script a challenge. Apart from the film script, she is working on her latest novel which is going to be a historical novel. The novel will take the reader back to the early part of 19th century.

Sita Kulatunga had translated number of novels from English to Sinhala including Kamala Markandaya's Some Inner Fury as Premaya Saha Kopagniya and Emely Bronte's Wuthering Heights as Premaye Unmadaya.

Her "High Chair and Cancer Days" is a collection of short stories. Accordingly to Sita, 'Cancer Days' is autobiographical and contains her own experience as a cancer patient. Writing a novel in Sinhala is her cherished dream.

Speaking on the deteriorating standards of Sinhala, Sita is appalled by the callous disregard of Sinhala grammar on the part of writers. Contemporary Sinhala language is in a pathetic state as most of the writers are ignorant of grammar. Particularly she noted that some Sinhala announcers seem to have no idea of active and passive voice.

Among her poems "Gode Person and others" and a couple of poems critical of international set up. Corpus of translations at her hand include non-fictional works such as "Women, Population and the Global Crisis" by Prof. Asoka Bandarage and her PhD thesis "Colonialism in Sri Lanka ".

Particularly, she is fascinated by how the cruel British treated up country Sinhalese and especially plantation workers of Indian discent.

With regard to banning of a work of art, she is of the view that the audience should be allowed to decide on a work of art. So that the individual can decide on whether to appreciate or not a particular work of art.

Remembering her days when D.H Lawrence "Lady Chatterley's Lover "was banned, she considers that D.H Lawrence's work as classics and the banning in the today's context will give undue publicity to the banned work.

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Speaking on the trend of post-modernist writing in Sri Lanka, Sita Kulatunga emphasised the fact that some of the writers follow post-modernist writing style as a vogue.

She is of the view that particular style of writing would not last long. She states that some of the post-modern writing sounds pretty pointless and at times they merely follow other writers in vogue.

However, her view with regard to modern writers such as Vikram Seth who is a booker prize winner. One of the salient characteristics that Sita Kulatunga noticed in diasporic writers is that they tend to pick up subjects that shock Western readers, a kind of exotica.

Though these writings are thoroughly readable, they, by and large, reflect on experience of expatriates. She finds that the post-modern writing has lost a focal point.

She expressed her views in a Pulimood oration titled "The Creative Writer and the Social Change" that she did not believe in art for art's sake. Literature has served many purposes.

She also mentioned that social change comes about slowly and almost imperceptibly through work of literature. For instance, she said that all feel the pangs of hunger that Oliver felt. Similarly many writers have high lighted and also attacked poverty, ignorance, political hypocrisy and even nepotism.

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