LITERATURE
The right dimension!
by Nilma Dole
Gratiaen prize winner for this
year Prashani Rambukwella spoke to the Sunday Observer magazine about
her literary sojourn. Describe, in a nutshell, a little about yourself
and how you were inspired to write. During my childhood I had a
wonderful pair of grandmothers with whom I spent long hours listening to
stories either being read or related to me. I started writing my own
stories around the age of eight but they always seemed to mimic the
British or American stories I was reading at the time.
 So no matter how excited I got while writing them I was never
satisfied with the final product. I learnt early to test my stories. If
after three months they still gave me that same buzz then they were
keepers.
Otherwise I’d put them aside as rubbish.
Explain how you developed the storyline of ‘Mythil’s Secret’.
As a child the stories that fascinated me were set in England or
America or the imaginary worlds of the West. While I enjoyed them I
longed for stories that were more familiar. Stories set in Sri Lanka
with Sri Lankan children as protagonists.
For older children in Sri Lanka there was a sad dearth of such
stories in English. I feel there still is. We could do with many more!
So I was determined to write my own. Where the idea came from I really
cannot say.
One day a shy little boy popped into my imagination and after some
time I realised that his name was Mythil. His story began unravelling in
my head over a year or so and I wrote it down.
Who are your influences and would you say your writing style is
influenced by them? Or do you have your own style? In the beginning my
writing style was very much influenced by the western authors I used to
read. It took me many years to find my own voice. Many, many ‘rubbish’
stories later I think! The secret was to allow the characters and story
to develop in my head.
When I could actually see the principal characters and really know
them it was easy to ‘hear’ them talking and that lent a unique Sri
Lankan voice to the text - at least that’s what I think.
Do you have a professional career? If so, what is it and how do you
balance your career with your writing? Yes, I am a corporate writer. My
work involves breaking down big corporate/business messages about
strategy into simple narratives that busy employees can easily read and
digest. As you can imagine this takes up a lot of time and I’ve only
been able to write on weekends or whenever I could find a spare moment.
What advice would you give would-be writers, especially those keen in
writing children’s books? Which authors would you recommend them to
read? You need to be passionate about the type of book you’re writing
about - so if you’re interested in writing for children you need to have
read as many other authors in that genre as possible.
When you’re writing just write for yourself and don’t stop to edit.
Then put the story aside for three or four months and read it again. If
it still holds your interest take that as a good sign and start the
editing process. Get as many trusted friends and mentors as you can to
read your early drafts and give you comments.
 Then edit as much as you can. Ultimately it’s up to you what advice
to act on and what to ignore. It’s best if you can get comments from
your target audience.
How supportive are your family with your writing? My parents and
extended family are very supportive of my writing endeavours. When I was
old enough to decide which path to take education-wise my parents
trusted me enough to allow me to follow a course in the Arts stream
rather than take up a more lucrative line of study.
When I told them I’d be miserable as a lawyer or accountant and that
I could shine as a writer because writing was what I loved doing they
gave up their own dreams for me and supported me every way they could.
Now as a Gratiaen Prize winner, have you been inspired to work on
more books, possibly novels for a predominantly adult audience? I think
I will always write for older children. I like this niche because it
allows me to write books that would interest both children and adults.
The grown-ups will be able to appreciate a different dimension of the
text but I think they would enjoy the books too.
What are your future plans, your life after the Gratiaen award? To
keep writing - which just got harder because I now have a one-year old
who takes up all my time!
Any acknowledgements? Too many to mention here but definitely my
husband for pushing me to find the time to make my dream of writing a
children’s book come true.
Pix: Chinthaka Kumarasinghe
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