Gunadasa Amarasekara and contemporary Sinhalese literature

Every tradition grows ever more venerable - the more remote its origin, the more confused that origin is. The reverence due to it increases from generation to generation. The tradition finally becomes holy and inspires awe. - FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE, Human, All Too Human

Culture is the widening of the mind and of the spirit- Jawaharlal Nehru

Gunadasa Amarasekara is a widely acclaimed Sinhala poet, novelist and essayist. He is a formidable Sinhalese cultural intellectual, a living legend in his own right, who shaped the contours of the national consciousness in the post-independent Sri Lanka through his enduring literary legacy and social criticisms.

Prof. Wimal Dissanayake, Sri Lankan born, internationally acclaimed academic and Fulbright Scholar in his monograph 'Enabling Traditions, Four Sinhala Cultural Intellectuals' writes: "Gunadasa Amarasekara (1929) is arguably the leading Sinhala Cultural Intellectual. As with most public intellectuals, his writings are controversial and generate intense public debate. He writes about literature, criticism, culture, modernization, consumerism, globalisation and so on with intense passion ... Gunadasa Amarasekara is a novelist, short story writer, poet of distinction who has shaped the imagination of many generations of Sinhala readers and widening their social awareness ..." The sad issue is since its inception the GLF organisers have failed to allocate even a single session to discuss Amarasekara's work!

For Amarasekara, poetry represents the essence of a nation's mirror. He observes that "poetry constitutes the language of the national heart. It is also the conscience of the nation. The fact that nearly half a century elapsed since attaining our independence, and we have not been able to reach the language of the heart ('hada basa') has generated anxiety and foreboding in me for a long time. Does this indicate the death of our heart? We know that a dead heart cannot speak to us or possess a language. If so, does it prefigure that we are facing a spiritual death that precedes physical death? "Here in his vibrant prose Amarasekara sees the ignorance of tradition as a key determinant to an intellectual and emotional sterility.

Gunadasa Amerasekara was born in 1929 in a remote village called Yattalamatta in the Galle District in the Southern Province of Sri Lanka. His father was a native physician and mother worked as a headmistress of a school. He was educated at Mahinda College of Galle and Nalanda College of Colombo and is a Dental Surgeon by profession.

Amarasekara's large corpus of literary and non-fictions include Rathu Rosa Mala, Jeevana Suwanda, , Karumakkarayo, Depa Nollado, Yali Upannemi, Gandabba Apadanaya, Asathya Kathawak, Premaye Sathya Kathawa, Gamanaka Mula, Gamdoren Eliyata, Ganaduru Madiyama, Dakinemi Arunalu, Ekatamen Polawata, Bhaava Geetha (poetry), Amal Bisso (poetry), Avarajana (poetry), Asak Da Kava (poetry), Arunaluseren Arunodhyata, Anagarika Dharmapala Marxvaadida?, Ekama Kathava, Gal Pilimaya saha Bol pilimaya, Jathika Chinthanaya saha Jaathika Aarthikaya, Katha Pahak, Ekama kathawa, Kavhandayaka Kathandaraya, Vilthera maranaya and his latest novel Gamanaka Aga.

If Martin Wickremasinghe vividly captured the socio-economic developments and the pangs of transformation from feudalism to capitalism in Sri Lanka, it is Gunadasa Amarasekara who portrayed in grotesque details the evolution of the Sri Lankan middle class and its decadent socio-cultural and economic life, particularly through his seven novels beginning from Gamanaka Mula. (Beginning of a journey)

One of the predominant characteristics of his philosophy of letters is that he perceives tradition (here, the literary tradition) as something which is not dead as a door nail but as a dynamic process which grows with the time and functions as a constant source of history that the literati could draw on. It is pertinent here to examine tradition, at least briefly, in order to understand Gunadasa Amerasekara as a cultural and social critic.

Prof. Wimal Dissanayake in his Enabling Traditions, Four Sinhalese Cultural Intellectuals describes tradition as; "The concept of tradition, like that of culture, is extremely elusive in that it defies simple formation; it admits of plurality of interpretations depending on one's intellectual vantage point. It is vitally connected with such notions as modernity, rationality, memory, history, and ideology. A tradition allows one to construct a narrative of the past, the present and the future on the basis of a certain present dealing with a certain past. The concept of tradition is inextricably linked with authority and legitimacy, and Marx Weber conceived of tradition as one of the sources of authority and legitimacy, the other two being charismatic and rational-legal resources.....the traditional notion of tradition stresses the idea of handing down ideas, objects, practices, assumptions and values from generation to generation. At the same time, tradition also implies reception-reception by an active public alert to both the imperatives of the past as well as the present. Very often, there is a perfect symmetry between handing down and reception."

From the inception of his illustrious literary career, Gunadasa Amarasekara's approach to tradition is unique and dynamic both as a poet and novelist. At a time he commenced his literary career as a poet, he challenged the two dominant Schools of the time; Colombo School of Poets with its sentimental poetry and Free Verse designed on work of Western poets which tried to craft out an artificial idiom out of English tropes.

What Gunadasa Amarasekara wanted was to create a poetic idiom that derived its dynamism from folk poetry. However, he did not use the traditional metre in its rudimentary form.

As a poet, he passionately believes the idea that that “poetry represents the essence of the nation’s emotional life”. Prof. Wimal Dissanayake points out that unlike the poets of the first stage of Colombo School like Ananda Rajakaruna, Amerasekara re-created a poetic language based on classical idiom while the poets of the Colombo School merely imitated it.

In examining his literary career and philosophy of letters, it seems that the principal thesis of his ideology is the belief that ‘the language is central to the understanding of tradition’ and that the relationship between language and tradition is inalienable. Amerasekara’s idea of centrality of tradition is eloquently articulated by Prof. Wimal Dissanayake: “There are number of reasons as to why Amerasekara insists on the centrality of tradition. The first is that Sri Lankans at present imprisoned in a neo-colonial set up that does very little to further their agency and further social development… Another reason for his strong advocacy of tradition as a vital constructive social force relates to the rampant consumerism.” (Enabling Tradition)

Amerasekara asserts that as a consequence of free market economy and the increasingly important role played by mass media, unbridle consumerism has posed a serious threat to values, norms and standards associated with the traditional culture which effectively rendered Sri Lankan middle class life valueless. In his short story collection Katha Pahak Amerasekara encapsulates this hollowness in sprit of the post 1956 Sri Lankan middle class.

Sinhalese literature at a cross road?

Lessons are many that contemporary Sinhalese literati can derive from Gunadasa Amerasekara’s enduring literary legacy. Amerasekara’s forte in literature is his metaphor- rich language and idiom which has enriched contemporary Sinhalese idiom and contributed to the qualitative growth of the corpus of Sinhalese literary productions. In his critical essay Nosevuna Kadapatha, Amerasekara insists that the future of Sinhalese novel should lie in realistic tradition rather than in borrowed alien modes. However, it seems that the mass media and culture of consumerism has made inroads into the Sinhalese literary arena in the form of cheap awards which are made to glisten like Gold albeit hollow in spirit.

However, at least one Sri Lankan scholar with a PhD from an American University has rejected Amarasekara’s ideas on Sinhala poetic diction. Writing to Daily News in 2005, Amarakeerthi Liyanage wrote: “It is Gunadasa Amarasekara who wants us to go back all the way to Shri Rahula or Vetteve or even further to Asakda Kava. What kind of sin we have committed to see one of our greatest modern writers trying to reconcile Alle Gunawansha’s politics and Shri Rahula’s poetry! The predicament of some of us who consider Amarasekara to be great is even sadder since we still want to call him ‘great’!” (http://www.dailynews.lk/2005/03/23/arts07.htm).

As Gunadasa Amerasekara rightly termed out, the antidote to this fast spreading literary cancer, which has spread its tentacles into the public sphere in the mode of cooked up ‘seminars’ aimed at glorifying ‘glistening awards’, dubious personalities writing non-refereed articles and publishing them on the Internet is to drawn on Sinhalese classical literature and on Sri Lanka’s rich literary tradition may be a not so honourable act.

On the other hand, some myths propagated by interested parties that the spoken Sinhalese idiom be used for literary production would in the long run, serves only the unscrupulous elements in the publishing industry with the ulterior motive of cashing on the growing mono-lingual Sinhalese readership. Undoubtedly these writers could learn from the rich realistic writing style of Gunadasa Amarasekara.

What this merchants of letters seems to aim at is to produce a generation of pseudo-literati who could churn out cheap literary productions at a drop of hat or present a non-refereed articles on the Web.

The secret pact that some of the Sinhalese medium ‘journalists’, ‘Editors-in-Chief’ seem to have entered into with the merchants of letters is to use the mass media, particularly Sinhalese newspapers, as a weapon of mass distraction to glorify the ‘hollow ‘ award and to glorify semi-literate pseudo writers to hoodwink the masses.

De-learning Amarasekara?

Apart from Professor Wimal Dissanayake’s writings on Gunadasa Amarasekara, sadly nothing serious has written about Sri Lanka’s foremost living author. In my view, Amarakeerthi Liyanage’s articles such as Unlearning what Gunadasa Amarasekara taught us with a sense of gratitude appearing in English newspapers and on the web cannot be considered as serious writings on Amarasekara’s corpus of work as they are non-refereed articles.

It is evident that some Sinhala writers are aiming to destabilise what Amarasekara has produced over the last 50 years without engaged in a rigorous and objective analysis of his work.

Whether some people like it or not Amarasekara’s work has provided us not only a mirror of Sri Lanka’s middle class mind but an analysis of it as evident from his work such as Gandabba Apadanaya, Katha pahak, Vilthera Maranaya and in his semi-autobiographical seven novels.

As I quoted at the beginning of this column Culture is the widening of the mind and of the spirit. Therefore, it is important for us to engage in meaningful and intellectual dialogue on Amarasekara’s work rather than creating myths about his corpus of work in Sri Lanka and the west.