Panhindaka Sanhida (Workshop for women writers):

Expanding women writers’ potential through reconciliation and networking

by Ranga CHANDRARATHNE

A group of women writers have, perhaps, for the first time, gathered to claim their rightful position in the realm of writing in Sri Lanka. Panhindaka Sanhida, an ambitious workshop sponsored by the Norwegian Embassy in Sri Lanka and led by Enokaa Sathyangani Keerthinanda, would open up avenues for women writers to realise their potential and to make a meaningful contribution to the nation. Choice of Inooka being the woman behind the exercise is, perhaps, most suited given the high degree of objectivity that she may be able to maintain throughout the workshop albeit she herself is a writer. For, she is a scriptwriter and a filmmaker.

Enokaa Satyangani Keerthinanda

Unlike in the West, most of the Sri Lankan women are bound by strict regime of customs, responsibilities and obligations to their extended families, that are often taken for granted. The role assigned for them by society is more or less confined to childbearing and being the shadow of their husbands. Though creativity is abundant among the women writers, often they are shunned by lack of opportunities coupled with nepotism in the field of writing and bureaucratic constraints imposed upon them by rather self-serving officials.

However, the women writers’ slot at international writers’ conferences and writers’ festivals have been dominated by a self-appointed group of women posing as women writers of Sri Lanka. For instance, an international women writers’ conference was represented by a mother and daughter who had never been writers. There were some instances where officials attended an international conference strictly meant for women writers. It is a widespread allegation that some officials at the Ministry of Cultural Affairs, were in the habit of allegedly stealing the invitations for writers to international writers’ conferences virtually making them shopping sprees for the officials.

Constraints

Given the social constraints and the obligations on women, women writers of Sri Lanka lead a restricted life. This taken-for-granted life style has also restricted the writing life of most of Sri Lankan women writers. Though there may be a handful of women writers who could afford the luxury of leading an extremely creative writing life, what the majority of women writers in general and women writers from rural outposts in particular, do is to express their limited socio-cultural experiences in the form of reactive writing.

Following the publication of their maiden work of fiction, they often found that the fountain of creativity has, suddenly, dried up or they have simply run out of ideas. Thus the writer in women would suffer a death at infancy not because of their own fault but due to the lack of opportunities and constraints imposed on them. On the other hand, most of the women writers could not further study on the craft of writing or read the latest publications on creative writing or fiction due to various reasons including the lack of access to quality reading materials, time constraints and restricted mobility compared with their male counterparts.

Hostile publishing industry

The environment of publishing industry in Sri Lanka is often infected with middlemen surrounded by intricate networks of connections which often cater to a selected group of writers. The scene is dominated by a group which in effect is denying access to potential writers in general and women writers in particular. Often the plight of women writers who do not posses the right contacts and much -needed leverage in the publishing industry is either to be exploited by the middlemen or to shun the dream of publishing the work and return empty handed. There is very little space for new entrants in this highly monopolised setup. Although thousands of cheap romances are being annually churned out by scores of publishers, the space and scope for serious writing has been limited. That space is also dominated by a group of writers. There is a powerplay going on in the industry albeit it is not discernible at superficial level.

Focus of workshop

The one-day workshop which will be held on November 8, at the Sri Lanka Foundation Institute would be a precursor for a commencement of a movement aimed at addressing issues that women writers confront in breaking into rather hostile publishing industry. The focus of the one-day workshop is on imparting theoretical knowledge of writing of fiction. The aims and the objectives of the workshop are achieved through a series of lecturers and interactive discussions on women writers’ related issues. An extensive discussion will be held on short story, novel and translations.

Although thousands of translations are being churned out by publishers, except a handful of books, the quality of most of the translations is extremely poor. If one would translate the Sinhalese translations of some of the books into English again, the author of the original work would be flabbergasted at the translated work. They are so distorted. There are some translators who would reduce a lengthy work into a book which is not even one third of the original work. The convenient answer behind unpalatable truth is that the translator has cut off chunks from the original work which is deemed to be culturally inappropriate to Sri Lanka. It should be mentioned here that if the work is deemed to be culturally inappropriate to Sri Lanka, the best course of action that the translator would have taken was not to translate it into Sinhala.

One of the aims of the workshop is to address such issues in an objective manner so as to create a greater awareness on women writers to maintain quality and higher standards in writing and translating work of fiction. In the session on translations, the ethical aspects of translations will be explored.

For instance, translators should be faithful to the original work and the translator has no right to cut off portions from the original work. In the session on novel, diverse forms of novels such as modern novel, post modern novel which for most of the writers are mere terms, would be dealt with in detail. A special session on script writing will focus on technical as well as practical aspects of script writing explaining spacious concepts such as the constant struggle between time and space.

A session on poetry would also explore diverse types of poems and poetics. Although the one-day workshop would not be aimed at in-depth coverage of all the subject areas, it would stimulate a generation of women writers in Sri Lanka, at least, to focus seriously on the issues confronting in their writing lives.

The panel of resource personnel includes Enokaa Satyangani Keerthinanda, Sumithra Rahubadde and Buddadasa Galapatty, Saman Wickramarachchi, Saman Wickramarachchi, Vijitha Fernando, Shanthi Dissanayeke , Bandula Padmakumara, Theliwatte Josphe and Handson Samarasinghe.

The workshop is opened for persons in the age group 18-35 and prospective participants are request to apply with creation not exceeding two A4 pages together with photocopy of the national identity card , on or before October 28, 2009 , to Sthri Shakthi Productions, 198/4, Sirimal Uyana, Nawala.