The first and last female modernist:

Literary footprints of Eva Ranaweera

by S.R. Palliyaguruge and Ranga Chandrarathne
 

Eva Ranaweera

Important aspects of Eva Ranaweera, the writer, are that she was a gifted bilingual writer who had been influenced by both world literature and ancient Sri Lankan literature. Her ability to look into the lives outside her comfort zone was remarkable. Her signature work "Sedona" bears testimony to her unique style of writing and narration which was derived out of colloquial Sinhalese spoken idiom. Though she completely had her education in English and wrote first anthologies of poetry, she was able to emerge as a formidable writer in Sinhala leaving her footprints on Sri Lankan literary landscape. Characters which peopled her books such as Sedona, and Deeptha will remain in the hearts and minds of generations of readers. Her leaving the stage is an irreparable loss to Sri Lankan literature.

From 1949 to 1953 Eva Ranaweera had been reading English, Sinhala and History as an internal student at the University of Colombo. At the time, she studied even Sinhala in English. She came from an English speaking family. Both her parents spoke in English at home and they closely associated with D.S. Senanayake and F.R Senanayake. Her family portrait reveals these high society associations. In actuality, after the colonial administration in Sri Lanka, it was the generation of natives including Eva's grandfather who took the administration of the country. If they spoke in Sinhala, that was only with servants and they travelled every inch out of the house, first in horse-drawn wagons and then in cars. In other words, Eva Ranaweera was born with a silver spoon in her hand.

Career in journalism

A woman writer is not one who is drifting on the surface. She dives into the life and touches on the deep recesses of it. She was always longing for freedom and explored the distant galaxies up to the Milky Way. Eva who passed out from the University of Colombo in 1953 did not want to confine herself to the home under her father's authority. She met D.B Dhanapala of Times Group. At the time, D.B. Dhanapala was the Editor-in-Chief of 'Lankadeepa'. Eva wanted to join the Editorial of 'Lankadeepa' as a journalist. It was because she thought that freedom she sought was there at the 'Lankadeepa Editorial'. After the interview, Dhanapala was convinced that Eva could write but she could not write in Sinhala.

It has never been an issue for Dhanapala as he also could not write in Sinhala. At the time, the working language in Sinhalese editorial was not necessary to be completely in Sinhala; English articles had to be sorted out and translated into Sinhala. Eva was entrusted with such tasks in the Editorial. However, gradually Eva picked up her Sinhala by speaking with typists and co-workers in Sinhala. Thereafter, she began to pen long feature articles for 'Lankadeepa'.

Eva's articles gained popularity and her co-workers appreciated her writing. However, there was a peculiar characteristic in her articles. That was that the articles were written in colloquial Sinhalese spoken idiom. Since she spoke with typists in Sinhala, she could not grasp the written Sinhalese idiom. But her articles were extremely readable.

After four years at 'Lankadeepa' Editorial, Eva resigned from the newspaper to take up duties as a translator at the University of Colombo.

"But within a short span of time, I resigned from the post because of back stabbing and bikering", later reminisced Eva. Eva did not go back to the 'Lankadeepa Editorial' and was unemployed for four years. However, after that period, she began her extensive foreign travels. She joined Asia-African Unity Organisation. For some time, she worked in Egypt and then travelled to Switzerland, Russia, China, India and Vietnam.

'Different people have different impulses. Some want to have liquor and others want to have affairs. I wanted to travel as I like. I have studied History as a subject at the University so I wanted to unravel mysteries of the world. Therefore, I travelled extensively," she described her urge to roam.

Following her extensive travels abroad, she returned to Sri Lanka in 1960 and joined 'Lankadeepa Editorial', this time, as the Editor-in-Chief of 'Vanithavitti', a women's magazine published by the Times Group.

Poet and dramatist

Eva Ranaweera's creative career commenced as a poet. At first, she wrote poetry in English. Her first couples of anthologies of poetry were in English. They include 'Selected Works of Eva Ranaweera', "What will you do?", "When we returned without you', 'With Maya', 'Blissfully' and 'Ending with the Beginning'. Of them, her anthology of poetry "When we returned without you" won the State Literary Award in 1993 and the anthology. 'With Maya' was won the State Literary Award as the best anthology of poetry in English in 1998.

Eva commenced writing scripts for drama early in her university days under the tutelage of F.C.K. Ludowyk. She wrote about six dramas including "Attakamal Paravagiya", "Pin Gona" (Three dramas), "Lovi Gahe Pilila", "Ehata Vahala Nil Ahasai", "Samanala Uyana" and "Maha Andakaraya" (five dramas). Eva Ranaweera had published two anthologies of short stories; "Mora Kele" and "Atara Maga".

Eva as a novelist

During her days at "Vanitha Vitti", her colleagues were pestering on her to write novels. One day a girl said, "Madam, please write a novel because your language is elegant". At last when she could not escape from the request she had said, "Are you mad! I don't know much Sinhala fit enough to write a novel".

"Your Sinhala is enough to write a novel", her friends encouraged her. She thought about the idea. The result was the birth of her maiden novel "Laisa" in 1967. The novel depicts the character of Laisa who belongs to the downtrodden class of society. She is a village lass, who is a victim in a male dominated society. Eva narrates the story with a sympathetic view. According to critics, Eva Ranaweera is a foremost writer who has a humane outlook towards woman in the village.

However, the most important fact in the novel is not the sympathetic outlook of the author but the rich language and the narrative style. The story commences; "Chuty is fond of the cow's shed. She spent most of her time during the day in the shed. There is a bullock cart in the cow shed. There are two carts. During the noon, one of the two carts is not in the shed. Chuty's father goes to work by it." (Her rich language cannot be translated into English in its rich form).

This is not a mere spoken idiom of Sinhala. It is a spoken idiom with techniques of the stream of consciousness. There are no separate dialogues and the dialogue comes within the main texture. Thoughts are expressed in dialogues. This is manifested in the following passage:

“How do you bear up this cold? I don't know. Mosquitoes have surrounded. Even a devil would get scared of the wind blowing. Akmon give it up. Don't you put up a fire? You should be given a prize for enduring these hardships. Then, Saran, I will leave. If you come, I will go either Laisa's or Helena's. Otherwise I will go home and sleep. Then, you wait, I am going. I cannot endure hardships like you. What is this, are we destined to slavery? But chum, I would not tell that I brought canned fish. I will take some beetles from the bed of beetle. You would not see the girl after tonight if rumours made of me" (Laisa- page 60-61).

If the stream of consciousness comes into Sinhala novel through a woman writer, it was through Eva Ranaweera's writing. Though the stream of consciousness is applied in the Sinhala novel for the first time, by Siri Gunasinghe in his novel "Sevenalla" (The Shadow), it was Eva Ranaweera who established it in the Sinhala novel. For, the stream of consciousness has been used as a narrative form in all her four of novels. In fact, she excelled in this technique. There are many reasons for her expertise in this form of narrative style. Chief among them was that James Joyce who was the pioneer in this style was her favourite author. She had read Joyce's "Ulysses" not once but several times.

"Joyce influenced my writing", she once remarked on the overarching influence of James Joyce on her work. the other reason for her remarkable style was her ignorance of the written Sinhala idiom and contemporary Sinhala spoken idiom. Though she used colloquial spoken Sinhalese idiom, she used it in a unique manner in depicting each character. Since she met those characters such as Sedona, Laisa, Podi, Yasothi, Alice, Signgno Lamaya at kitchen and at courtyard and at wagon drawn by bulls and as she associated with them. Therefore, Eva used her unique style of language with the stream of consciousness and her Marxist ideology to deep analyze life and create a novel literary experience through "Laisa".

"Sedona" which she wrote in 1973 was her masterpiece. The novel depicts the life of an impoverished village woman from her childhood to her late adulthood. The author centering on the character, portrays the stark reality of village. She narrates how parentless Sedona became a slave at the hand of the villagers and how her maiden love offered to a married man and she was insulted like a bitch because of that marriage. However, this is only the superficial story of the novel. It portrays the plight of a poor woman in the village, cruelty, hypocritical moral standings in it and deeply reading of life. Monika Ruwanpathirana describes "Sedona" as "When analyzing the character of Sedona in the context of Sri Lankan women's society, it is a very important character. Her tragedy became more cruel not because of poverty alone but because of her being a woman. She suffers as a woman in abject poverty. The villagers rallied around her who was accused of misdeeds, not to rescue her from her plight but to exploit her, to use her like a toy of the village. She braves all these challenges. She, who did not worry about the sayings of the women who failed to understand her plight and reached old age as a heroin, (Introduction to the second edition of Sedona).

However, the striking characteristic of her writing is her language skills. Eva's use of Stream of Consciousness which began with "Laisa" reached its zenith at "Sedona". Here it has been elevated to a prose poem.

"Sedona smiled. One moon escaped. Another is in the sky and another on the creek. Both frown at Sedona. Sedona closed her eyes and put her fingers into the ears. The moon on the creek searched the moon that was thrown at Diyonis Aiyya. Diyonis Aiyya wipes out the water falling. Diyonis Aiyya could not understand Sedona's sadness. Though flowers of Bovitiya on the road put on her neck and wrap Sepalika on hands, Sedona cried and she could not do what she could not do. "Still water flows through the creek. Moon reflects on it on a full moon day..." (Page 82).

Though the narrative novel "Sedona" in general takes a slow pace, it takes on a fast mood at times. Throughout the narration, Sedona's voice emerged. We picture a beautiful maiden. From time to time, the author uses different techniques such as changing the tempo of the narration to distract the reader from emotionally engaging with the work. This is not portraying the injustices caused to Sedona from a feminist perspective. However, most of the feminist writers including Monika Ruwanpathirana considered "Sedona" as a feminist novel.

"There is a survival factor for each and every writer. That's to get released from suffering if he or she leads an ordinary life. Society may not allow you to be a hero. At least, there should be a hero in mind. That is to get rid of suffering. This was what I did when I wrote "Sedona". "Deeptha" has been written from a man's perspective. Other than those, I don't have preconceived notions", Eva said.

In her last two books, "Deeptha" and "Thani Nothaniya", she has maintained the same style as in "Sedona". We remind the last question asked her about "Deeptha".

"Yes, readers are silent about the book. I think the book has already been rejected. From the very beginning readers did not accept my books. But I believe that one day they would accept my works".