Top five in the running for Gratiaen

The shortlist for the Gratiaen Prize 2020 was announced at an online event on April 5.  Of the eight long-listed writers, five have been short-listed for the highly coveted award.

They are:Ameena Hussain for Chasing Tall Tales and Mystics: Ibn Batuta in Sri Lanka – a creative telling of the journeys of Ibn Batuta; Carmel Miranda for Crosswatch – a medical mystery novel;Jehan Aloysius for Mind Games – a dramatic script; Lal Medawattegedara for Restless Rust – a novel in manuscript form; and Ciara Mandulee Mendis for Red Brick Wall – a collection of short stories in manuscript form.

The event was livestreamed on the Facebook page of the Gratiaen Trust.  The winner of the Gratiaen Prize 2020 will be announced on June 9.

This year the judging panel is chaired by Mahendran Thiruvarangan, a Senior Lecturer in English Literature at the University of Jaffna and an active arts and political commentator. Also on the panel are well-known creative writer and public personality Ashok Ferrey and Victoria Walker, a former diplomat and passionate supporter of arts and culture, currently working as a volunteer for Sri Lanka’s Design for Sustainable Development Foundation. Their detailed bios can be found on the Gratiaen Trust website.

The Gratiaen Prize 2020 is the second award event to be presented under the Gratiaen Trust’s new partnership with John Keells Foundation – the CSR entity of the John Keells Group. This partnership falls within John Keells Foundation’s focus area of Arts & Culture aimed at nurturing the livelihoods of artists towards safeguarding and promoting Sri Lankan arts and culture under its overall vision of "Empowering the Nation for Tomorrow".