Effort of 50 years on view
View(s):For anyone to be a prolific writer in today’s context while being a professional in another field is not at all easy. And to complete 50 years as a writer in such an environment is indeed an achievement. A lawyer by profession, well-known writer Wijesinghe Arachchilage(W.A.) Abeysinghe has achieved this feat.
W.A. Abeysinghe: Making a speech on receiving an honorary doctorate from the Wayamba University
I have known this quiet, unassuming individual for more than 50 years. He and I were on the editorial staff of the ‘Dinamina’ together in the early 1960s. I remember him as a simple young man who preferred to mind his own business. With his progressive ideas, he worked in ‘Aththa’ and ‘Sirirlaka’ newspapers after leaving Lake House. Having done his degree as an external student in the first batch of Vidyalankara University after being an English trained teacher, he was quoted once as saying that he decided to do law because he had nothing else to do at that time. He passed out as an advocate in the late-1960s (in the era of proctors and advocates prior to the term ‘attorney-at-law’ coming into use).
Kuliyapitiya being the base for his legal practice, Abey’s work over five decades is being exhibited on Friday, June 12 and Saturday 13 at the Kuliyapitiya Town Hall. His books, manuscripts, articles in newspapers and journals as well as a collection of photographs will be on show to mark this milestone in his writing career. Many a writer would have preferred to celebrate such a landmark in Colombo but not Abey.
Abey’s range is very wide. It’s quite an impressive collection of nearly 300 –
novels and short stories, poems, non-fiction, translations, children’s literature and lyric writing. He has authored 241 books in Sinhala and English, contributed nearly 2,000 articles to newspapers and another about 500 to magazines and journals.
His creativity as a lyricist (he has written about 300 songs) is best illustrated by the song– ‘Adavan vu denethin galana – meth muditha, karuna dhara ‘ – on the Samadhi Buddha in Anuradhapura conveying the serenity and tranquillity of the statue in the most simple words. And, of course, Pandith Amaradeva made it a song to remember.
His translations include writings by English, Russian and Indian authors. He spent time translating American writer Louis Fisher’s ‘The Life of Mahatma Gandhi’. “I had always wanted to do a comprehensive work on Gandhi. I got a lot of satisfaction translating Fisher’s book,” he says.
Among Indian writers, he has translated R.K. Narayan’s ‘Swami and Friends’ and Mulk Raj Anand’s ‘Two Leaves and a Bud’.
Over the years, Abey and I used to meet in Colombo, not very regularly, but whenever we did we always talked about our newspaper days and about his literary activities.
Once I met Abey at the National Library Services Board. The newly elected socialist government had appointed him as Chairman. ‘Ideal man for the job’, I thought to myself. We had a good chat. That was one of the rare occasions when he was working in a state institution. With the change of either the minister or the government, he was gone. Yet it didn’t bother him. He could continue writing while doing work in the courts. He once served as the Editorial Director/Consultant of the state-controlled Lake House.
He had served in the Sahitya Mandalaya, Arts Council and in the D.R. Wijewardene Literary Awards Panel. His books have won awards at the annual State Literary Awards. Abey, who had been closely associated with the great writer Martin Wickramasinghe from around 1962 until his death, was invited by the MW Trust to do his life story combined with an exhaustive study of his work. Confessing that it was a gigantic task, Abey admits that being someone who never worked according to a plan, it became even more difficult. “I know that working without a plan is foolish and gives a bad example to others. But I never have a plan for anything that I do. As a youngster I tried to lead a planned life. But soon the plans went haywire.”
How does he manage his writing? “I get down to work. I don’t think about it earlier. And I have absolutely no confidence in planning ahead. So I just sit and continue to write. But one thing is that I am always working. But that is not to meet any objectives or with a hope of going places.”
Abey says that the mighty task of handling the Martin W project evolved as he continued to write. Though the work went into three volumes, he preferred to call it “an introduction to his life, work and vision”.
Abey’s next assignment was to prepare a comprehensive collection of short stories written by Martin W from 1924 – 1951. The collection came out in two volumes. Once again a lot of effort was put in to locate and edit short stories written by him to newspapers and magazines which were not available in book form earlier. Over the 27 year period, he had written 112 short stories which the readers can now enjoy. Abey had done it again!
Apart from these, Abey had earlier collated renowned poet P. B. Alwis Perera’s poems into two volumes.
“Life had always been hard for me. But I had been consistent in my writing in the last five decades. That is how I have become so ‘voluminous’,” Abey sums up his literary pursuits.
Recognising Abey’s contribution to the literary scene in Sri Lanka, the Wayamba University conferred on him the D.Litt (Honoris Causa) but knowing Abey, I am sure he prefers to be W.A. Abeysinghe as he has always been.