Sita Kulatunga to deliver Pulimood Memorial Oration

Sita Kulatunga, the well-known writer will deliver the Susan George Pulimood Memorial Oration tomorrow, July 23, at the Visakha Vidyalaya's Jeramias Dias Hall.

This year's oration, the seventeenth in the series, is important as this is the 100th birth anniversary of Mrs. Pulimood and the oration is by a Visakhian of the Pulimood era. All orations in the past have been by eminent Visakhians, specialists in their chosen field, but all were not students at Visakha when Mrs. Pulimood was principal.

"A teacher, writer, academic and lecturer, Sita Kulatunga portrays the ideal Sri Lankan literati rooted in the soil and end owed with a rare ability of writing in her mother tongue Sinhala as well as in English". Sita Kulatunga was introduced to the Observer readers sometime ago.

Sita Kulatunga nee Wickramaarachchi crowned her school career winning, in 1954 the prize awarded to the student obtaining the highest marks in Sinhala at the SSC (now O/L) exam. At the University she read Sinhala, English and Economics. She is best known as the author of Dari The Third Wife, a novel based on her experience in Nigeria where was for two years, teaching English. Its Sinhala translation 'Thunveni Birinda' has been re-printed thrice.

The theme of Sita Kulatunga's oration will be 'The Creative Writer and Social Change.'