Sunday Times 2
Fairway National Literary Award shortlist announced
The shortlisted entries for the Fairway National Literary Award 2016 were announced on Friday at a press conference held in Colombo. The inaugural Fairway National Literary Award was initiated by Fairway Holdings to encourage writers from Sri Lanka and will recognise the best novels in English, Sinhala and Tamil languages published in 2014/15.
The five shortlisted works in the English category were chosen from 16 entries submitted in the category. The shortlisted works are ‘Strange Fruit’ by Afdhel Aziz, ‘It’s not in the stars’ by Rizvina Morseth de Alwis, ‘The King and the Assassin’ by Visakesa Chandrasekaram, ‘Sinhala Only’ by Manuka Wijesinghe and ‘Rails Run Parallel’ by Ayathurai Santhan.
Head table from L to R: Lal Medawattegedara (representing the English Judging Panel), Dr. Sunil Wijesiriwardena (representing the Sinhala Judging Panel), Shivanka de Zoysa (Group Director and Chief Operating Officer of Fairway Holdings), Geoffrey Dobbs (Founder of the Galle Literary Festival), Amrita Pieris (Director of the Galle Literary Festival) and Natasha Thompson (Festival Manager). Pic by MD Nissanka
Four shortlisted entries out of 68 submissions in the Sinhala category made the cut. The shortlisted works are ‘Ran Karanduwa’ by Batuwangela Rahula, ‘Maha Sami’ by Sepali Mayadunne, ‘Mey Rahas Kaluwen Ebbenna’ by Kaushalya Kumarasinghe and ‘Raja Saha Gathakaya’ by Visakesa Chandrasekaram.
It was announced at the press conference that the panel of judges for Tamil writing had opted not to issue a shortlist for the award. In a statement, the judges noted the need to amplify the development of contemporary Tamil literature in Sri Lanka. The panel stated: “In our opinion these submissions are mere fiction, lacking standards of good novels that aesthetically depict the complexity of real human life and its nuances. They, in their narrative are very poor in quality, and heavily influenced by the commercial Tamil cinematic culture. With the above conditions, taking the need for a real progress of contemporary Tamil literature in Sri Lanka, we have reluctantly decided that there is no entry even qualifying for a shortlist for the Fairway National Literary Award.
In addition to the shortlisted entries, the panel of judges for each language category was also revealed at the press conference. The Sinhala panel comprised Dr. Sunil Wijesiriwardena – Chairman of the National Arts and Cultural Policy for Sri Lanka; Dr. Nirmal Dewasiri – Department Head of History at the University of Colombo and Harshana Rambukwella, Senior Lecturer at the Postgraduate Institute of English and Trustee of the Gratiaen Prize.
The English Panel consisted of Shyamalee Tudawe – Editor of Hi! Magazine; Tissa Jayatilaka – Executive Director of the Sri Lanka Fulbright Commission and Lal Medawattegedara – Creative Writing Lecturer.
Judges for the Tamil Panel were Professor Nuhuman – poet, literary critic and linguist; Saminathan Wimal – Senior lecturer in the Department of Linguistics and English, University of Jaffna and translator of Tamil and Sinhala literature and Suren Raghavan – Winner of the first James Madison Trust Scholarship for Asia and Visiting Professor at the University of St. Paul, Canada.
Shivanka de Zoysa, Group Director and Chief Operating Officer of Fairway Holdings, also announced that it was decided to present a Fairway Literary Encouragement Award – a special award in addition to the judges’ choices and the final accolades. This award will be conferred at the discretion of the Chairman of Fairway Holdings and is aimed at identifying a deserving writer who merits recognition. De Zoysa affirmed that the Fairway Group’s commitment to the Galle Literary Festival and the National Literary Award was a long-term one. In addition to its involvement in these annual events, the group also aims to conduct workshops to improve writing skills in all three languages and foster a conducive learning environment for Sri Lankan writing.
The winners of each language category of the Fairway National Literary Award will be awarded Rs. 500,000 each, while the shortlisted authors receive Rs. 100, 000. The winners of the inaugural Fairway National Literary Award will be announced in Galle on January 15 2016 to coincide with the 2016 edition of the Fairway Galle Literary Festival.