Tragedy of 'Fantasy' and mock awards

In this week's column, I thought of reviewing the history of literary genre of fantasy as a prelude to look at our own phantom-like judges who are selected to promote English writing in Sri Lanka. These phantom-like characters can also be found among those writers who compare themselves as the winners of Sri Lankan literary awards similar to Booker Prize or Pulitzer Prize of Sri Lanka.

The importance of the literary genre of fantasy has been felt stronger today than ever before in the arena of Sri Lankan literature in English. If the genre of fantasy is dominated by magical powers, talking creatures, dragons, monsters, weird sisters and phantoms from opera, it is more or less true to mock awards and panel of phantom-like judges with fantasy elements of absolute secrecy, hidden agendas and mystic verdicts.

In fact, the process of arriving at conclusions within a stipulated time frame, on literary productions to be "judged" and subsequent award ceremonies could be compared to a mega fantasy with fun and fair. Since this 'notable' or now notorious award has been a proverbial feather in the cap for Sri Lankan literati in English, it is pertinent here to examine albeit in brief the literary genre of fantasy in order to uncover the fantasy elements behind the phantom-like panel of judges and writers.

A salient characteristic of the literary genre of fantasy is the presence of unrealistic or mystic elements and marked departure from the accepted rules and norms by which the individuals perceive and make victories in the world at large. Often, the plots of fantasy fiction are unrealistic depicting black and white or good and evil characters. An omni- present characteristic of fantasy fiction is magic. Magical elements are present in the setting or in the plot of the fantasy fiction or magic may be performed by one or more characters. In simple terms, fantasy fiction is those fictions with stories that could never happen in real life. Fairy tales such as those by Hans Christian Andersen, Grimm brothers (German: Die Brüder Grimm ), The Lord of the Rings books by J. R. R. Tolkien and Harry Potter and The Hobbit are some of the best examples of modern and old fantasies.

History of fantasy

Although the history modern fantasy is less than two centuries similar traditions could be traced back to ancient epics such as Iliad, Odyssey, Ramayana and Mahabharata. The genre of fantasy is often examined as modern counterpart to mythology, although it is fraught with controversy. Fantasy can be considered as the most rudimentary of all literary genres since its roots can be found in folklore in many cultures. One of the interesting facts in the history of fantasy is for generations, people believed in myths and legends as gospel truth that dramatically influenced their lives and aspirations. One of the fascinating elements of fantasy is timelessness of stories with heroes facing insurmountable odds in fighting out with a formidable villain who may be defined as evil.

As the fantasy elements are present throughout the literary genres and sometime diverse genres could be present within a single piece of literature, it has been become an extremely difficult task to define the sub-genres of fantasy. Some of the sub-genres of fantasy include Romance Fantasy, Fairy Tales, Alternative History based on folk-lore, Arthurian Fantasy, Comic Fantasy, Dark Fantasy, Epic Fantasy, Fairy Tales and Mythology, Heroic Fantasy, High Fantasy, Mystery Fantasy, Magic Realism, Modern Fantasy and Sword and Sorcery .

One of the famous literary gatherings on fantasy fiction which has become a subculture is the World Fantasy Convention. The WFC was held for the first time in 1975 and since then it has been the most important event for fantasy fiction. The annual event presents awards for best literary work in the genre of fantasy. It is a much sought after annual events where authors, scholars and artists in the fantasy genre gather to discuss, admire and receive accolades for their work.

Local Fantasy Convention (LFC)

Although there is apparently no such LFC equivalent to the WFC in Sri Lanka, a mock award with avowed objective of promoting Sri Lankan literature in English. But in my opinion the process and the rituals adopted is similar to nothing but a LFC. It has been observed that verdict of the phantom-like panel of judges with questionable credentials, on literary productions in English contains inexplicable mystic elements. The award ceremony preceded by 'so called short listing' is marked for its make-believe aspects such as creating implicit faith in the panel of judges, mystic procedure of selection which is said to be impartial and the legitimacy given by the founder of the award and 'fellowship of the ring' who are civil-society label bears.

Although the local 'fellowship of the ring' who may be described as LFC are responsible for literary awards equivalent to the Booker Prize for Sri Lankan literature in English. In this fantastic process, one of the unwritten criteria seems to be the deliberate incursion of vernacular words into fiction. (Here vernaculars being Sinhalese and Tamil). This is evident from some of the extracts of the fictions in which where the authors preferred to use vernacular words despite English equivalents are available for them. This ritual is a done under the sponsorship of 'the fellowship of the ring'. One of the pet-projects of 'the fellowship of the ring' is to promote a variety of Pidgin English in Sri Lanka to achieve their parochial aims. However, the tragedy is that the most of the budding writers with potential of becoming writers similar to Salmon Rushdie or Arundathi Roy of Sri Lanka destroy their future, apparently, by aping the unwritten criteria of the mock award.

In my view, in many instances, the mock awards are presented to literary production of inferior quality. If the fantasy elements such as talking creatures, sacred cows, dragons, academic imposters with hang ups, weird sisters and phantoms from opera are present at a mock award which is unfortunately held sacred by a section of literati in English, such an award is, both literary and metaphorically, a LFC.

In recent past, similar processes have been adopted to bestow awards for Sinhala literati as well. These award winning so called novels with poorly crafted language have been labelled as "best novels" and given awards with cash. The irony is some of those "fantasy creators" who one way or the other had won some of the awards have compared their work and awards to Booker Prize or Pulitzer Prize of Sri Lanka. This is indeed another aspect of fantasy creation for their local and foreign masters by local magic makers.