[Interview]

Promoting Sinhala culture and literature beyond our shores

Dr. Palitha Ganawatte is a diasporic Sinhala writer domiciled in Australia. He is also a broadcaster, poet, novelist and Russian scholar. His works in Sinhala offers readers with novel experiences of Sri Lanakans encountering issues pertaining to diasporic life. His maiden novel Avith Norataka ( In an alien land) deals with the experience of a Sri Lankan migrant family in Australia and how they come to terms with clash of cultures, ideas and falling apart the conventional values hitherto held sacred by Sri Lankans.

By Ranga CHANDRARATHNE

Dr. Palitha Ganewatte interviews Dr. Gunadasa Amarasekara

Dr. Palitha Kohona

Prof. Rajiva Wijesinha

Dr. Palitha Ganewatte

Question: Among other literary and cultural activities both in Sri Lanka, and Australia, you are the Executive Producer of Australia's only National (SBS) Sinhala weekly Radio Program which some say provides information on Sri Lankan news, arts, and culture. Would you please comment?

Answer: Yes, you are correct. The Special Broadcasting Service (SBS) is the largest ethnic broadcaster in Australia and I am fortunate to be the Executive Producer of the Sinhalese program.

Mission

The mission of SBS is to inform, educate and entertain different ethnic communities in Australia in their own languages. SBS broadcast in 78 different languages, the Sinhalese have only one hour weekly program as the air time is allocated according to population basis. As SBS is a language based broadcaster there is a weekly one hour Tamil program as well.

Although we have to pay greater attention on Australian context in our Sinhalese program as per SBS guidelines, we allocate a considerable time within this one hour to cover Sri Lankan news, current affairs and Sinhalese arts and culture. Our program was very popular among the Sinhalese community in all over Australia.

We had an opportunity to cover in greater depth the events associated with Sri Lankan conflict and counter the campaign launched by certain western political elements to discredit the Sri Lankan Government. The in-depth interviews conducted by me with political analysts such as Dr Palitha Kohona, Prof. Rajiva Wijesinha and Prof. Rohan Gunaratne enabled to inform the Australian public and media on the real situation that prevailed in Sri Lanka in an objective manner. You can listen to SBS Sinhala program at any time by visiting our website-www.sbs.com.au/Sinhalese.

Q: In my understanding, in all the States of Australia, there are authors, poets, writers and translators writing and representing a bit of Sri Lanka and Australia. Please comment.

A: In Australia there is a huge interest in Sinhala literature. In Melbourne alone two Sinhala community newspapers are published monthly. In Sydney and Melbourne closer to 20 Sinhala writers have published at least one literary creation.

D B Kuruppu, a prominent writer, who has beeing living in Melbourne for the last 20 years, has published nearly 100 books. Sunil Govinnage has published five collections of poem in Sinhala and English. Those literary works play an important role in Sinhalese diasporic literature as they depict the lives of multicultural and multilingual Australian life as well as life of Sri Lankans living in Australia.

Several book launches were organised last year sponsored by Sinhalese cultural organisations both in Sydney and Melbourne. Saman Dissanayake, Jagath J Edirisingha, Hemamala Herath, Rasika Suriarachchi and Lashman Kodituwakku are among other Sinhala writers in Australia.

Significant

Q: Is there any significant corpus of work that these writers have produced so far?

A: D. B Kuruppu has published a translation of a prominent Russian writer Anatoli Rybakov's famous novel 'Children of the Arbat' in seven volumes, which was published early this year by S. Godage publishers.

Sunil Govinnage's collection of poems and Lashman Kodithuwakku's short story collection were awarded the best poetry book and best short story collection respectively in 2009.

Ravi Siriwardena of Melbourne has produced a few collections of lyrics, one of which was awarded the State Literary Prize in 2010.

My latest novel Mawatha Abiyasa was selected for the Best Novel Award published in 2009 by Dayawansa Jayakody publishers.

Experience

Q: Do you think that these work could enhance and enrich Sri Lanka's literature or culture, and if so, how?

A: Obviously, because this is entirely new scope of experience for Sinhala readers as most of the events depicted in the stories are based on foreign soil and how Sri Lankans encounter problems in alien lands. The works would add a new dimension to Sri Lanka's literature as Sri Lanka's diasporic literature.

Q: You yourself are a writer and a translator and you have published two volumes of poetry, a collection of short stories, novel and a translation. Why do you write in Sinhala or English for that matter from Australia?

A: I write mainly in Sinhala, my mother tongue. If you have the passion, willingness and inspiration to write you will write irrespective of the fact that what country you live in. As literature depicts the lives of human beings, it is imperative that literary creations are embraced by readers whatever the language which you express your experiences.

Australia is a multicultural and multilingual nation. The Australian government encourages the incorporation of different ethnic languages and cultures to the mainstream culture, as evidenced by the establishment of Special Broadcasting Service (SBS) 37 years ago. Sinhalese writers in Australia can enrich the Australian culture by incorporating a bit of Sinhalese culture. I believe the best way of carrying out this important task is to write in Sinhala or English depicting the lives of Sri Lankans living in Sri Lanka or Australia.

Sinhala literature

Q: In your opinion, those writers in Sri Lanka could help to expand the horizon of Sinhala and English literature by writing from Sydney, Canberra or from Perth, and why should we read their work?

A: I believe that the best way of taking the Sinhala literature to international arena is the collaboration between Sinhalese writer overseas and Sri Lanka. Sinhala writers overseas has a significant task to introduce Sinhala literary work to the country of residence and the best of way doing it is through translation of original Sinhala literature into English.

Q: Do you think that the writers and readers in Australia could facilitate and or help Sri Lankan writers to take their work from the narrow geographical space into larger readership?

A: That is exactly what we Sinhala writers want to do here in Australia. The Sinhalese have a very rich literary tradition, but unknown to international readership, particularly to western world. A writer from Perth, Sunil Govinnage writes English poetry, mainly translations of his own poetry originally written in Sinhala. As you probably aware that Australian academics such as Prof. Yasmine Gooneratne and Dr Chandani Lokuga have written a few outstanding novels based on Sri Lankan experiences. The literary works enable western readers to understand our Sinhalese culture and literary traditions.

Interviews

Q: Recently ,you conducted a series of interviews for SBS Sinhala program covering a variety of issues with Sri Lankan poet and writer, Dr Gunadasa Amarasekara? Why did you arrange the interviews for a Sri Lankan audience in Australia?

A: As I mentioned before thereis a huge interest in Sinhala literature among Sinhalese migrants in Australia. This was evident by a few features I produced to mark the anniversaries of Martin Wickramasinha and Prof. Sarachchandra.

It will be of great benefit to our admirers of Sinhala literature to conduct a series of interviews with Dr Gunadasa Amarasekara, who is the greatest living author in Sri Lanka. The first few interviews were well received by the listeners and their enthusiasm and repeated requests stimulated me to conduct a series of interviews.

The series covers only the literary contribution by Dr. Amarasekera. Interviews concerning Dr Amarasekera's approach to modern Sinhala novels and poetry and his denial of his own work written during the peradeniyaera era were well received by listeners. You can visit website www.sbs.com.au/sinhalese to listen to the interviews.

Appreciation

Q: Do you think that Dr Amarasekara's work merit the attention beyond Sri Lankan shores , and if so why?

A: I believe that Dr Amarasekera's work is not sufficiently appreciated overseas as most of his work is not translated into English. It is unfortunate that book publishers in Sri Lanka has not paid any attention to translate Sinhalese literary work, including Dr Amarasekera's into English.

Q:Do you think that we in Sri Lanka, I mean the journalists and critics alike are not effectively engaged in discussing the work of writers such as Gunada Amarasekara, to provide meaningful and objective dialogue?

A: My understanding is that there is very poor literary criticism in Sri Lanka at this stage. Martin Wickramasingha introduced principles of literary criticism based on Sinhala Buddhist culture in his two critical works, 'Sinhala Vichara Maga' and 'Navakathanga saha Viragaya'.

For certain unforeseen circumstances the principals of Sinhalese literary criticism ware not developed by subsequent literary critics. This can be attributed to the absence of political and social consciousness of people, influence of alien critical principles associated with post-modernism. In the past decade Dr Gunadasa Amarasekera has produced a few excellent works, which have not received adequate critical evaluation. For instance, the collection of poems 'Asakda Kawa and his nine series novel depicting the middle class Sri Lankan intelligentsia.

Modern novel

Q: Your maiden novel Avith Norataka (in an alien country) depicts the life of a professional Sri Lankan migrant family. Why should readers in Sri Lanka read novels representing issues, perhaps somewhat alien to tehir society! ?

A: I do not think that issues represented in my novel are alien to Sri Lankan society. In fact the novel depicts the problems faced by a Sri Lankan family in integrating to Australian society and the incessant struggle between two generations. A feedback I received from readers was such that a bit of their own story is in my novel and some were of the opinion that every Sri Lankan family that intends to migrate to Australia should read my novel. Sri Lankan readers love to read translations of alien literary work, which shows that issues raised in foreign literature are not alien to Sri Lankan readers.

Q: You have translated the short prose of Anton Chekov from original Russian. How do you achieve your competency in Russian?

A: I studied in Russia in the 1980s and I was an avid admirer of Russian literature, particularly Anton Chekov. We were studying, talking and living in a country for almost a decade where only the Russian language was heard, spoken and written.

I cannot explain the esthetic excitement and literary inspiration I gained by reading Anton Chekov's short stories. I had translated Chekov's early short stories from original Russian into Sinhala while studying in Russian. In 2004 I published a collection of Chekov's 18 short stories spanning from early to late period of his creative development to coincide with the centenary death anniversary of the great Russian writer.

It is very productive to translate from the original language, when you live in a country where you learn the language of the people and you understand their culture. Understanding the culture, lifestyle of the people, their history, aspirations, suffering, traditions, all these things provide you with a wider knowledge of the language with its subtle meanings. I believe the translator should equip himself with all the qualities to maintain original artistic flavour of the work he translates.

Q: Are you working on another book?

A: Currently, I am working on a book also on Chekov. Chekov was a medical doctor. Chekov once said that medicine is his legal wife and literature his mistress. I am researching what influence Chekov's medical profession has had on his literary work. When you read Chekov you will understand how he brought his medical knowledge and sensitivity to his creative writing.