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First-ever Fairway National Literary Award winners announced at FGLF
The winners of the inaugural Fairway National Literary Award 2015 were announced at an award ceremony held at the Fairway Galle Literary Festival 2016 on Friday.
Sepali Mayadunne receiving her award from Prof. Maithree Wickremesinghe. Pix by Amila Gamage
Sepali Mayadunne’s ‘Maha Sami’ was adjudged the winner in the Sinhala Category while Rizwina Morseth De Alwis (It’s not in our stars) and Ayathurai Santhan (Rails Run Parallel) emerged as joint winners in the English Category. The Chief Guest at the ceremony was Maithree Wickremasinghe.
The inaugural Fairway National Literary Award was initiated to encourage writers from Sri Lanka and recognises the best published novels in English, Sinhala and Tamil languages, published in 2014/15.
Eighty nine entries were received for consideration of the award: 16 entries were submitted in the English category, 69 for the Sinhala category and 5 Tamil novels for the Tamil category.
The Fairway Literary Encouragement Award, which was chosen at the discretion of the sponsor of the event, was awarded to 15 year-old Sajani Senanayake for her novel ‘Pearl of the Truth’.
The five shortlisted works in the English category were chosen from ‘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.
Ayathurai Santhan the joint winner in the English category receives his award
The shortlisted works in the Sinhala category were ‘Ran Karanduwa’ by Batuwangela Rahula, ‘Maha Sami’ by Sepali Mayadunne, ‘Mey Rahas Kaluwen Ebbenna’ by Kaushalya Kumarasinghe and ‘Raja Saha Gathakaya’ by Visakesa Chandrasekaram.
The winner of the Tamil category was not awarded this year. A unanimous decision was made by the panel of judges in the Tamil category not to announce a short list for the Tamil category, noting that there were no entries which met the standards of a shortlist.
The panel of judges for the prize included Dr. Sunil Wijesiriwardena, Dr. Nirmal Dewasiri, Harshana Rambukwella, Prof. Nuhuman, Saminathan Wimal, Suren Raghavan, Shyamalee Tudawe, Tissa Jayatilaka and Lal Medawattegedara.
Shortlisted entries were awarded a cash prize of Rs. 100, 000 each while the winners of each category were awarded
Rs. 500, 000.
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Sajani Senanayake receiving her award
Law and Order Minister Sagala Rathnayake surrounded by his security entourage at an event at the FGLF.