TV Times
‘Stories’ Charulatha’s winning novel wins foreign acclaim
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Hat tricks are generally applauded due to the pure excellence of the person who achieves it. However, it is rarely heard of in the world of literature, especially when a novel goes beyond a hat trick. CharulathAbeysekara. ‘The warathanthri’s ‘Stories’ added its first foreign win to its list of national achievements recently when it was placed third at the 21st Queen’s English Society’s Prize for Excellent English in the UK. The prize was awarded with a special commendation for a non-native user of English.
The Prize for Excellent English is awarded for prose with the aim to encourage production of excellent English and provide good examples through re-printing some of the best entries in the Society’s journal ‘Quest’. Only pieces nominated by members of the QES are regarded for the prize and prose published in 2017 were considered for the 21st edition.
In the judges’ report,Stories was claimed to be a “piece [that] shows superb imagination and powers of description, with the most lyrical passages of any of the entries”.
Charulatha won her first award for ‘Stories’-the Gratiaen Prize in 2016 – when the book was still in its manuscript form. This was followed by the Godage National Literary Award and State Literary Award for Best English Novel in 2017. The novel was also shortlisted under the English category at the Fairway Literary Awards in 2018.