Veteran author & journalist honoured with the ‘Dayawati Modi Stree Shakti Samman’ award
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Anula de Silva (right) at the ceremony, with Rekha Mody, (second from right)
veteran novelist and journalist, Anula de Silva has been honoured with the ‘Dayawati Modi Stree Shakti Samman,’ an award established by women, for women, in the memory of Dayawati Modi, an Indian philanthropist, known for her welfare work for women and children.
Ms de Silva is the first Sri Lankan woman to receive this award.
The award is instituted by the Stree Shakti- The Parallel Force Foundation, India. Stree Shakti Foundation works for human welfare establishing a network of Women’s Centres to support multiple activities, addressing the overall empowerment of women.
Anula de Silva has received many awards for her contributions to society. These include awards for women’s rights and development through media from Law College in 2007, the Journalism Lifetime Achievement Award from the Editors’ Guild of Sri Lanka in 2009, the “Kalabushana Award’ for creative writing from the Cultural Affairs Department in 2017, contribution to women through media and literature in 2015 from The Abhimani Development Foundation, India and the State Literary Award for “Youth Literature” in 2017.
Born in 1941 in Ambalangoda, her first novel ‘Unmaththakayo’ published in 1964 marked her debut in writing whilst pursuing her career in teaching. Later she completed her post graduate diploma in Journalism and Creative Writing at the University of Sri Jayewardenepura. She was a writer at the ‘Mihira’, the children’s weekly newspaper and Editor of ‘Sirikatha’ and ‘Vanitha Vithtthi’, the women’s weekly newspapers. Ms. de Silva has written more than 125 books including novels, translations and children’s books. Her radio programmes were intended to motivate women.
She was presented with the ‘Dayawati Modi Stree Shakti Samman’ award at the opening ceremony of the Rabindranath Tagore Memorial Auditorium at the University of Ruhuna. The event was graced by Rekha Mody, Founder of the Stree Shakti Foundation along with the Vice Chancellor of the University of Ruhuna, Prof. Gamini Senanayake.
The Rabindranath Tagore Memorial Auditorium with state of the art theatre facilities and a seating capacity of 1,500 was donated by the Government of India to the University of Ruhuna for undergraduate use.