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| Sunday, 25 January 2004 |
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Features |  |
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Boycott of Lankan authors' books? by Padma Edirisinghe A succinct local saying runs as follows: "If the fence and the ridge eat the paddy whom shall we complain to?"
Two sample order lists were shown, forwarded and posted to him for delivery, one from G/Meepawala Amarasooriya Vidyalaya, National School, Poddala and the other from Sabaragamuwa Provincial Department. The first list has been endorsed by Director of Education, School Development Unit, Ministry of Education and the second by the Chief Accountant, Provincial Education Department, Getangama, Ratnapura. That the two lists have a basic common source is apparent by the similarity of the names of books. (The writer pens this on the assumption that all other institutions too have received this same list). Fifty books are recommended in the first list while 57 books are recommended in the second list. The categories in the first list that give no names of the authors are titled Big Books (Agent -- Sky Enterprises, Colombo 4), Small books (same agent), Ginn books Level 2 and 3 (Agent... Jaya Book Centre, Colombo), Cambridge University Press (Agent - Paper Corner, Kurunegala), Oxford Press (Agent - Expographic, Colombo). In this list are apparently five books by local authors since they come under the category, Tikiri Book Publishers, Pannipitiya. These 5 books, are The giant mushroom, My bodyguard, Hop Jo Jo Hop, Hide and Seek and the Balloon thief. Even these 5 books are missing in the other list. Titles Predominating in the Sabaragamuwa list were authors, Joy Cowely, Jillian Cutting, Roderich Hunt, Bill Piggins and Barbara Michelhill. A range of about 10 to 15 titles authored by them have been endorsed for purchase and distribution to schools. The book field is certainly an arena where a Laissez - affaire policy should prevail. Though quotations are not the writer's forte this famous saying by Mahatma Gandhi surfaces here. "Let all the doors and windows of my house be open so that fresh air from all quarters shall blow freely here." But what one finds almost obnoxious in this situation focused on by Mr. Godage, the patriotic book publisher who has won the highest number of awards in the field, is that the "house" has refused entry to its own inmates, or to be more specific, the local writers in English who have produced their own books for children. A counter argument can be made that these books are not up to the required standard to be used in schools and hence the taboo. In that case institutions as the Cultural Ministry Panel for English, the Book Development Council of the Education Ministry and the National Library Services Board who have over the years granted awards for local books written for children in English or sponsored them financially should be penalised for aiding and abetting on a national scale, unsuitable literature for children. Review The members of the review panel who selected those books for national recognition should be immediately subject to some kind of disciplinary action for misleading the young reading public or requested to declare that even if selected these books fall far short of standards in foreign books! Anyway limiting the child's reading field to only books written by Western writers is tantamount to bringing back the spectre of imperialism that we had assumed had left us for good. Mr. Godage is especially concerned about this situation as he has just contemplated a project for encouraging competent English writers to write supplementary books for children based on episodes in the Mahavamsa to instil knowledge of history in school children. But if the biggest buyer of children's books i.e. The Education Ministry shuts its doors to them, where is the market, he asks me as I went to hand over to him my English translation of Dinky the donkey a fascinating book written by Fr. Don Peter that instils love for animals among child readers. This translation project is another brainchild of his. May be you could get Joy Cowly or Jillian Cutting or Roderick Hunt to write the Mahavamsa stories and have them imported into the country via the above mentioned agencies. I suggested I wanted to add that there is a smell in many transactions in polluted Lanka but did not do so for two reasons, i.e. that I am raw in the game of smell location and the other reason, that I did not wish to talk of putrefying subjects in that environment in which the central figure, Sirisumana Godage, the poor farmer boy from Palatuwa off Matara who rose to be the most flourishing book seller in the country sat among hundreds of books and under a serene statue of Sakyamuni Buddha, our revered epitome of mercy and justice. But outside the premises in the dirty and polluted atmosphere washing dirty linen in pubic just clicks. There is not only something very questionable about the whole episode but something very tragic too as our writers to whom the country owes its main duty of encouraging have been left utterly stranded. While our Education Ministry buys about 10 to 15 titles by a single foreign writer, which education Department in a foreign country would opt to buy a single title of ours? "If the fence and the ridge eat the paddy, whom are we to complain to?" Perhaps the query arose in one of our distraught farmers of yore who could not locate the culprit who ate the golden paddy pods in his field and lamented so under the open skies, in the belief that it was the immediate protectors who did the dirty. Now all that our writers are left to do under the circumstances is to take up the refrain or go in for more positive action. (The writer is a retired director of education and ex-secretary, education publications advisory board.) |
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Sirisumana
Godage, Proprietor of Godage Publications, Maradana, more or less had the
same query recently as he showed the writer, lists of English books
ordered by state schools and provincial Education Departments for
children's reading. All the books ordered are by foreign writers,
according to Mr. Godage and according to the list that includes a meagre 5
by local writers.
