Countdown to the Gratiaen

It’s that time of the year again – and Colombo stops to celebrate the written word. When the Gratiaen Prize comes around annually, the literary community of academics, writers, publishers, critics and your everyday bookworm, take a moment to reflect on the potential of pen put to paper, making it the hour of the creative writer – the moment of the scribbler folk.

An annual event since 1993, the Gratiaen Prize is awarded to the best work of creative writing in English by a resident Sri Lankan writer. This year’s shortlist of five creative work, announced at the British Council Auditorium on March 5, 2007, was chosen from a total of 25 entries – which, as the chair of the panel of judges Vivimarie VanderPoorten said – covered a “wide spectrum of creative writing such as autobiographies, literary memoirs, plays, poetry, short stories and a large number of novels.”

In her reflection on the judging experience, process and criterion she noted that one of the interesting developments this year was the number of entries that “resist classification into traditional genres”. No longer does writing allow for the possibility of convenient labelling; it rebels against conventional structure – demanding that it stands alone, resolute in its desire to revel in the challenges of being an experiment. And for this, from the judges it earns the response – “this blurring of the genre itself, we see as innovative, and commend it.”

This year also recorded a significant number of published works when compared with the number of manuscripts submitted. A factor indicative of a flourishing publishing industry, the judges pointed out, emphasising however the importance of pre-publishing work, integral in any publishing process but lacking in some of the published entries.

The judging criterion, explained Vivimarie, emerged from the reading of the submissions – rather than a prescriptive ‘imposed’ criterion – which firstly, looked at the ‘WHAT’ of the work in terms of content, diving into the thought, the concept behind the work – asking of it, ‘was this compelling,’ ‘were we left with an epiphany.’ Secondly, there was the natural progression to the ‘HOW’ of the telling – ‘was it creative,’ they asked, ‘did it capture the possibilities and potential of new varieties of English available to the writer,’ ‘was it bold, spectacular,’ and more importantly ‘did it do justice to the WHAT’. Finally, it was an examining of ‘Technique,’ with a keen eye out for attempts at changing or manipulating the conventional storytelling, the innovative… the fresh.Through this process five works emerged. Work that the judges found “wasn’t very difficult for us to choose… because the works we chose did stand out, and the decision of the panel was unanimous.” Of the five shortlisted, interestingly, four entries are published work, available in bookstores.

According to the panel’s citation, “For being written in a stark and utterly uncompromising manner,” Senaka Abeyrathne’s play Three Star K made the shortlist, applauded “for its power of the spoken word, with tight, sparse, shocking dialogues and a disconcerting depiction of the depths of the human psyche.” In contrast to the darkness of this work came the next – a breezy collection of short stories that was at once “humorous, entertaining, sensitive” – Ashok Ferrey’s The Good Little Ceylonese Girl, a collection really of “amusing commentaries of various aspects of the absurdity and pathos of the human condition.” Yet another collection of short stories, The Banana Tree Crisis by Isankya Kodituwakku was cited as “…neither patronising nor self absorbed, unpretentious yet poetic and very simply, compelling and beautiful.” A work “ambitious in scope” and one that “encompasses and transcends geographical and cultural spaces” was Rita Perera’s Coalescing with Omega – a novel that stands out because it “conveys a gentle and convincing spirituality.” Their Autopsy by Vihanga Perera written in a “genre that challenges the boundaries and blurs the genres of autobiography, fiction and poetry, with language that reflects new standards and language rules” also made the shortlist for its “refreshing departure from all conventional aspects of storytelling” and its “bold, humorous and moving depiction of youthful angst.”

The judges for this year were Vivimarie VanderPoorten, Dr. Neil Fernandopulle and Priyanthi Fernando. As is customary the three judges on the panel are invited in three different capacities – the academic, the writer and the reader. With her first degree from the University of Colombo, a Master’s degree in linguistics from the University of Ulster and presently reading for her PhD, Vivimarie VanderPoorten, senior lecturer attached to the Department of Language Studies, Open University of Sri Lanka, was the academic on the panel – although she is given to dabbling with writing – her book of poetry Nothing Prepares You, a testament to this fact. The ‘writer’ seat was occupied by one-time Gratiaen winner Dr. Neil Fernandopulle, a molecular biologist by profession from Genetech, who was jointly awarded the Gratiaen in 1999 for his work Shrapnel and shortlisted for the award in 2004 for This Side of Serendipity. Priyanthi Fernando, executive director of the Centre for Poverty Alleviation, with a first degree in sociology from the University of Peradeniya and a Master’s degree in Mass Communication from the University of Leicester, wore the ‘reader’ cap for the evening.

This year’s panel of judges for the H. A. I. Goonetileke Prize for Translation, which was initiated in 2003, comprised Prof. Arjuna Parakrama, Dr. Sumathi Sivamohan and S. L. M. Marikar. As only a limited number of entries were received for this prize, there was no shortlist.
The winners of the Gratiaen Prize 2006 and the H. A. I. Goonetileke Prize for Translation 2006 will be announced on March 24.