News
Jean’s The Life of the Poet bags 2017 Gratiaen
View(s):The 2017 Gratiaen Prize was awarded to Jean Arasanayagam for The Life of the Poet, her collection of poems, at an event held at the BMICH, Colombo last night.
The Gratiaen Prize annually rewards creative writing in English by a Sri Lankan citizen resident in Sri Lanka. The other writers shortlisted this year, which marks the 25th anniversary of the prize, were Sunela Jayawardene, Chiranthi Rajapakse and Neshantha Harischandra.
The judges for this year’s prize were Prof. Carmen Wickramagamage, Andrew Fowler-Watt and Michelle de Kretser. This year’s shortlist was singular in that it represented four genres- poetry, short stories, the novel and travelogue/memoir, produced by four women writers.
The Gratiaen Prize is the most prestigious award for Sri Lankan writing in English, and was established in 1993 by Michael Ondaatje with the prize money he recieved for his Booker Prize-winning novel, The English Patient, in 1992. Pic by Indika Handuwala
