Galle Literary Festival 2009 :

A note of hope and inspiration

by Indeewara THILAKARATHNE and Ranga CHANDRARATHNE

The feeble rays of sun set over the enchanting port city of Galle, overlooking the distant hills of Rumassala as the much-awaited literary fiesta of the year the Galle Literary Festival of 2009 concluded, leaving behind loads of memories for both the participants and the literati. By now the festival has come of age and has set its own character and precedence.

Romesh Gunasekara Pix-Twiggy

Apart from literature of diverse flavours and hues, the festival has opened avenues for Sri Lankan literature in English, drama and offered an international podium for up-coming Sri Lankan writers in English. The festival which opened at the Martin Wickramasinghe Museum where the legendary Sri Lankan literary giant was born concluded with a note of hope and inspiration. Perhaps, it was most appropriate venue for a literary festival though the Festival was confined only to English literature. It was at the venue four Sri Lankan up-coming authors and poets were introduced.

Chanali Kariyawasam, Shehani Gomes, Masii and Shehan Karunatilake who read out their works or excerpts from them offered a glimpse into contemporary Sri Lankan literature in English. Although it has a long way to go along the road to maturity and to be able to be truly a people’s literature, the young writers showed that there is a growing body of writing in English. It seemed that their writing have come under the pervasive influence of Sri Lankan English. In a subsequent session Michael Mayler who compiled a dictionary of Sri Lankan English pointed out that our English has over the years acquired words and usages from Sinhala and Tamil and has, now, been grown into distinct variety of English. Mayler among other things stressed the importance of recognising diverse varieties of ‘Englisheses’ grown outside main language pool. Participants pointed out complications in testing and evaluating the language skills of learners within a region and to set yardstick to maintain the fundamental characteristics of the English language so as to use it as an inter and intra national language.

Vivimarie Vanderpoorten pix-Alefiya Akbar Ali

The session “Family Secrets”, conducted by M. J. Akbar, the author of ‘blood brothers’ and Ameena Hussain, the author of “The Moon in the Water” was one of the interesting sessions where principal myths built around Islam was shattered with sound theological basis.

Perhaps, the most exciting point that M. J. Akbar eloquently articulated was that it was absolutely illogical to equate Islam with fundamentalism or fascism. “Islam is a brotherhood and not nationhood. Therefore, Call for unity is false” pointed out Akbar, emphasizing that it was also erroneous to coin the word ‘Islamo-fascism’ as Islam is 1,400 years old whilst fascism has only commenced less than hundred years ago. Akbar also stressed the fact that the West is metamorphosed for glory and all that is modern while Islam is painted as fundamentalist. He questioned the rationale behind attempts by the West to impose their culture on devotees of Islam. For instance the headdress worn by Muslim women is also found in the statue of Mary and woundered whether the West would advocate the removal of the headdress from the statues of Our Lady.

Patrick French, the official biographer of V.S Naipaul in a session on his celebrated subject, revealed the man behind the public image of Naipaul. It was one of the interesting sessions where a glimpse into the private life of Naipaul was revealed. Mosses Isegawa’s session shed light on African literature in English. Apart from reading from his own novel Abyssinian Chronicles , Isegawa introduced up-coming African writers in English. Romesh Gunasekara, internationally known Sri Lankan author, recounted his experiences in exploring islands and contrary to the popular belief, the social life in those islands are extremely cosmopolitan and vivid.

In a session “Love in a Time of Conflict” V. V. Ganeshanathan, the author of Love Marriage describes how she expresses Sri Lankan experience. The session which was moderated by Sanjana Hattotuwa, heated up when a journalist posed the fundamental question whether the author was a writer of fiction alone and that did she not write about the secular contemporary political history of Sri Lanka, particularly of the turbulent times. However, it is a pity that the moderator attempted to equate secular history with fiction. It seems that either the ‘moderator’ does not understand the difference between history and fiction or try to put the author onto his own track of thinking, earnestly believing that the role of the fiction writer is confined to interpreting distant events in history. It should be mentioned that the moderator handled the session very badly.

Pico Lyer recounted the travelling with Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama and how Tibet has gone global since it was occupied by China. Defining the ‘Global Soul’, Pico said President Barack Obama is a fine example as he represents a blend of cultures and lineage across the continents of civilizations. In a session ‘Time/Travel’, Colin Thubron narrated the fascinating journey through the ancient Silk Road and how it had helped cross germinate the races across the fault-lines of civilizations.

Some of the other interesting sessions included Thomas Keneally’s “Beyond Schindler” and the session “Stranger than Fiction”, a session on journalism.

The session was marked by the absence of any Sri Lankan journalist from mainstream print media. Galle Literary Festival of 2009 concluded with renewed hopes for another exciting literary fiesta.