What’s in a pen name?
As the outcry at the 2012 Gratiaen Prize has proved, there is a lot riding on the name of a writer
At the recently concluded Gratiaen Prize of 2012, one of the shortlisted candidates had submitted a work under a pen name. Apparently, this created a huge outcry, infuriated the Gratiaen Trust and shocked the audience.
A quick glance at the Gratiaen rules for submission on its website shows that it has no rule against a writer submitting a book or a manuscript under a pen name. Looking at the rules it is clear that the Gratiaen is more concerned whether the writer is a Sri Lankan citizen and has been resident in Sri Lanka. Needless to say, the rules have the prize’s priorities right. After all, the Gratiaen Prize, if we are to go by the website, “intended to encourage English writing by Sri Lankans.” In the past, at least one other writer has submitted under a pen name to the Gratiaen Prize, but nobody batted an eyelid. Why then, the outcry in this case?
This is why. In this case, the writer happened to be well known as a writer, in his case however, his fame has rarely been complimentary. He arouses either intense adoration or bitter distaste in Colombo’s glitterati circles at the mere mention of his name, which of all ironies, also happens to be a pen name! After all, how many people know Suresh Mudalnayake.
His cardinal sin, however, was that his pen name evoked Tamil ethnicity, and not Sinhalese ethnicity to which he belonged. One wonders whether there would have been such an outcry if a Tamil writer had used a Sinhalese pen name.For, after all, in a country renowned for being biased against a minority, the use of a Sinhalese pen name could be said to give a writer a fighting chance of being evaluated fairly. Few would have murmured. However, to do the reverse would be to invoke the wrath and outrage of the Politically Correct all and sundry. Who would dare to say that this is inverse racism?
Writers write under pen names for all sorts of reasons. The most common reason in literary history throughout the ages is the same as this time’s Gratiaen shortlisted author’s reason for sending his manuscript under a pen name: to avoid reader bias. Many women would not have been published or read the way they have been if they hadn’t written under their pen names. Who would read Mary Anne Evans? Yet George Eliot’s books are classics of English literature.
The list of reasons however continues. Authors write under pen names if they want a different readership once they have already made a name as a writer. Agatha Christie wrote as Mary Westmacott, Ruth Rendell writes as Barbara Vine and Stephen King as Richard Bachman.
Authors write under pen names if their positions in society prevent them from writing under their real names. Jawaharlal Nehru wrote scathing criticisms of himself as Chankaya. As a teenager, Benjamin Franklin, one of the founding fathers of the US, wrote as Mrs Silence Dogood, a middle aged widow.Voltaire was the pen name of Francois-Marie Arouet. Few would recognise Neftali Ricardo Reyes Basoalto, the birth name of Pablo Neruda. And Eric Blair changed his name to George Orwell because he wanted a name that sounded more “English”.
In some cases, publishers are known to insist on changing a writer’s name to make it more marketable or to avoid the disadvantage of belonging to a particular gender or background. After all, Joanne Rowling evokes a picture of a person a very different to J. K. Rowling.
In other words, a pen name is a tradition that has acquired licence by practice. It is an author’s right by precedent.
It is a pity that the Gratiaen Trust appears to have attempted to disassociate itself from the incident by feigning ignorance, hiding behind public responses, pointing fingers at the writer and stifling the author’s right to inform the public as to why he wrote under a pen name. All this makes one wonder if the Trust is able to handle matters that are truly literary even when they are informed of such matters several days before the final event.
The result however is a loss to our literary tales. Our island’s literary history would be tepid if not for the Fly by Nights and the Januses. It’s a pity that we have yet again missed the moment with a manuscript written under a pen name that has just been snapped up by Random House.
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