Gratiaen 2023: And now there are five
From left: Ramya Jirasinghe, Lal Medawattegedara, Selvi Sachithanandam, Vihanga Perera and Pasan Jayasinghe. Pix by M.A. Pushpa Kumara
Despite the heavy dusk showers, it was a colourful gathering that turned up at the British Council library to cheer the shortlist of the 2023 Gratiaen Prize. In its 31st year, the Gratiaen long list this time comprised eight authors while the shortlist is a bumper with five.
On the shortlist are: Pasan Jayasinghe for ‘Passing Return’; Ramya Jirasinghe for ‘Father Cabraal’s Recipe for Love Cake’; Selvi Sachithanandam for ‘Gnanam’; Vihanga Perera for ‘Students and Rebels’ and Lal Medawattegedara for ‘When Ghosts Die’.
The Gratiaen has certainly come a long way from those years when the judges complained about lack of quality despite quantity, this year’s jury having had to give up such works in the long list as Richard Simon’s certainly magisterial Thomia, a biography of the prestigious School by the Sea and a work by Jehan Aloysius arguably Colombo’s cheekiest thespian.
The Gratiaen was established in 1992 by one of Lanka’s most internationally acclaimed writers Michael Ondaatje with the money he won for the Booker Prize for his novel The English Patient.
A reading in progress
It was Angeline Ondaatje, the informed reader in this year’s three-member jury- who announced the five shortlisted authors, both other judges being based abroad.
As Angeline said, the decisions were unanimous among the chair of the jury Dr. Anthony Joseph from the UK, Dr. Ruvani Ranasinha from King’s College London and herself.
Excerpts from the texts tantalized, as theatre personalities read out juicy chunks including Lal Medawattegedara’s novel which deals with an alter universe where an uprising called the Maragalaya is taking place- a mutiny by dead spirits to oust dead politicians from the nation’s most exclusive cemetery, featuring an urn, a teapot and an ‘extraordinarily ordinary woman’ called Mandara; also Vihanga’s glimpse to an elusive world- a Kandyan village afflicted by the political emergency of 1988 and 1989.
There was also Ramya Jirasinghe’s enchanted setting of a tropical island fort built by a colonial trading company in the 18th century, where ‘a woman makes a cake as sweet as wild honey and ‘as unforgettable as a great love’.
A section of the audience: Judge Angeline Ondaatje is seen extreme right in front row with Gratiaen Trust co-chairs Nisreen Jafferjee and Nafeesa Amiruddin
Pasan’s book is a record of a different sort of culture shock- finding the contours of his island changed so drastically during his long absence in the first world. Selvi Sachithanandam’s book is a layered memoir.
Streaming in from the UK, Dr. Anthony Joseph, originally from Trinidad, a poet, novelist and academic, said “I am an islander as well, so there’s a lot of affinity that I’ve seen in the entries… we are all grappling with the universal concern of how to be human, how to best represent humanity and there’s a lot of that in the work presented here…”
Added Dr. Ruvani Ranasinha, scholar of postcolonial literature and theory, who was also a judge back in 2003, also streaming in- “it’s been fantastic to see the continuing success of the Gratiaen Prize in stimulating the interest of a mix of brand new authors alongside… familiar faces; and also to observe the broad range of genres submitted from life writing to novels to plays- as well as an intriguing mixture of travel writing and historical documents.”
The winner will be announced at an event to be held on June 1.
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