PAPER-2 MODULE-26
Sri Lankan Women Writers.
I. (A) Personal Details Role Name Affiliation Principal Investigator Prof. Sumita Parmar Allahabad University Paper Coordinator Prof. Sumita Parmar Allahabad University Content Writer/Author (CW) Dr. Shamenaz Bano Asst. Prof. Ewing Christian College Allahabad, UP Content Reviewer (CR) Prof. Sumita Parmar Allahabad University Language Editor (LE) Prof. Sumita Parmar Allahabad University
(B) Description of Module
Items Description of Module Subject Name Women’s Studies Paper Name Women & Literature Module Name/ Title Sri Lankan Women Writers. Module ID PAPER-2 MODULE-26 Pre-requisites The learner is expected to be aware of the socio- political conditions of the country Objectives The objective of the module is to throw light on the women writers of the country. Keywords Sri Lankan Women writers, Political upheavals, civil war, personal narratives
Sri Lankan Women Writers.
Introduction
Sri Lankan Women Writers :Finding Space within political turmoil. Punyakante Wijenaike, Kumari Jayawardena, Nira Konjit Wickramsinghe, Rosemary Rogers & Thisuri Wanniarchchi.
Sri Lanka or Ceylon, as it was known earlier, was the first country to have given the world a woman Prime Minister, Srinivaso Bhandarnaike indicating that the women of the country had social and political status. However, Sri Lanka has witnessed tremendous political upheaval, bitter conflict and violence over an extended period. Civil strife has torn the country and cost it dearly in terms of
human as well as other resources. Although peace has now been restored to the land, still there are many issues which have to be sorted out. The present module provides a brief overview of contemporary women’s writing in Sri Lanka focusing on a few select writers. A comprehensive survey is outside the purview of this lesson, but the endeavour is to introduce the student to an area of literature where significant work is being produced.
History of the women’s writing in English in Sri Lanka The history of the women’s writing in English in Sri Lanka began as early as 1928, when Rosalind Mendis published her first novel, The Mystery of a Tragedy published by Arthur Stockwell of London. The novel was not so successful and it did not pave the way to inspire other women to take up writing as a career. Women’s writing did not flourish in Sri Lanka due to many reasons, but over the last three decades, despite the turbulent context, there has been a resurgence of writers and a new wave of authors have made themselves visible trying to carve their niche in the world of English writing, many of whom have been very successful. Vijeta Fernando writes, ‘a half a century long drought followed, before creative writing, especially by women, could take root and flourish in the island country.’ Commenting on the contemporary scene, Sri Lankan writer Carl Muller says, “Women have become the standard bearers of Sri Lankan writing in English in the past 50 years.” 1 Different people have different views regarding the growth of women writers in Sri Lanka. S. Sivakumaran, the famous critic and the columnist of Tamil literature believes that the increased scopes and possibilities of a University education have created a positive and favourable atmosphere for better creative writing by women. He opines: It could be that their discipline in university education makes them more attentive to the craft, characterisation and language in their writing than men. Women are also naturally observant and better at description than men. 2 He further adds to his remark: Look at the number of women expatriate writers’ today, who are making a mark in the international arena. We have Michelle de Krester, Yasmine Goonaratne, Chandani Lokuge and several others. I don’t seem to be able to bring
1 http://southasia.oneworld.net/peoplespeak/womenwritersinsrilankacomeofage
2 Ibid
any men’s names into this list. 3
Vijitha Yapa, a famous journalist turned book publisher, ascribes this change to the changing economic condition of the country, the liberation of economy, and the influx of investors resulting in women’s emancipation in almost all fields. This has led to the raising of the status of women writers by expanding their horizons and experiences. Yapa is herself a very famous publisher of English language books in her country. She sees a, “a new generation of women writers exploring social issues through the novel, the short story, drama and verse. Publishers now have a wide array of choices instead of a few limited manuscripts. Quite a few of our publications of women’s work have won state literary and other awards.”4
Earlier, women had focused on different subjects in writing. Critics felt “that women wrote only about ‘womanly’ subjects, limiting themselves to domesticity or particular womanly experiences.” But now there is a tremendous change in terms of themes and content.5
New Generation of Writers Whatever be the reasons, the outcome is that the women’s writing in Sri Lanka is flourishing and Sri Lankan women writers are gaining international attention. They are giving voice to the experiences of the common women of their country and encouraging them to move forward, oppose and fight against the injustices inflicted on them, to raise their living standards and to become emancipated. However, in spite of their achievements, they continue to face hostility and the double standards of a patriarchal society. Sunita Rajakarunanayake, a prolific, award winning writer and translator had raised this issue in her writing. She boldly exposes the double dealings and double standards regarding the status of men and women of her society, both politically and socially in her novels and poetry. She has addressed such controversial subjects as extra marital affairs, sexual scandals and exploitation of gay men. Though she has been criticised for her choice of subjects, she boldly says that, “I expose reality through creativity.”6 People have criticised Rajakarunanayake not only for her writing but also for neglecting her home and family and giving more time to writing. But she
3 Ibid 4 Ibid 5 Ibid 6 Ibid
challenges her critics and counters these allegations by proclaiming that, on the contrary, her writing has shaped the personalities of her son and daughter and made them into strong and independent individuals. These are charges falsely framed against her and based on jealousy. “Anyway this problem was never mine, as my husband and family are always behind me in whatever I write”, 7 She states.
There are other similar examples of writers who have been accused of writing at the cost of neglecting their families. One such writer is Sicila Cooray, who writes poetry and believes that she is able to do so because of the support of her husband and her grown-up son who allow her space for her creativity. She says: I am a ‘moody writer, in that I write only when something moves me and that can be every day or once in a while.... whenever it is I always find the space and their support. That I suppose, is what makes me tick!8
Another bilingual writer, Eva Ranaweera, who is the editor of the famous quarterly magazine in English on women’s issues, ‘Voice of Women’ states that, “Looking at women’s writing as a whole, it is quite clear that the charge that women’s writing are limited in experience, non- scientific, ‘womanly’ and semi autobiographical does not hold water anymore.”9 Yasmine Goonaratne, who is Professor Emeritus of Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia says, “Women no longer feel pangs of guilt over devoting time to writing.” 10 Goonaratne is herself a writer and credit goes to her for putting Sri Lankan women’s writing on the international map through her teaching years at Macquarie University. She is credited with editing and publishing many collections of Sri Lankan fiction without any help. The unstable political condition of Sri Lanka, resulting in civil wars and its consequences constitutes the theme of the work of these writers. Issues like displacement, killings of family and people one is close to, the suffering of parents who have lost their children in the struggle, finds place in their writings. Women are the worst sufferings of any war and their experiences also form the basis of the work. There are many other social problems specific to women like female migration, drugs abuse, use of women in the insidious business of storing
7 Ibid 8 Ibid 9 Ibid 10 Ibid
and distributing narcotics, molestation, sexual abuse of women and children, failed marriages and domestic violence which are addressed by these writers.
Punyakante Wijenaike
Sri Lankan women writers have been honoured by various awards and prizes from around the globe. Punyakante Wijenaike wrote, ‘Anoma’ which addresses the subject of incest and won the Commonwealth Award for short fiction in 1996 for it. Not only this, she has also won the prestigious Annual Gratiaen Award for creative writing The Gratiaen Award is a famous literary award named after the grandfather of well known Booker prize winner and Sri Lankan Canadian author Michael Ondaatjee. It is the most prestigious literary award of Sri Lanka, given annually to the best piece of work in English writing by a Sri Lankan living in the country. Wijenaike has also been honoured by several state literary awards for her fiction. Considered one of the most famous and foremost contemporary novelists and short story writers of her country, her other novels are, ‘Dark’, ‘Yukthi’, ‘Missing in Action’ and ‘The Rebel’. These novels deal with the current problems existing in her country such as the theme of ethnic conflict, the insurgency of 1980 and 1988 and the youth rebellion of 1971. Yasmin Goonaratne aptly remarks : It is often said that women write more or better because because they have more time than the men the men do. I don’t go along with this view, as many women have to find time, juggling with housework, childcare, caring for aged parents and full time jobs. So what makes them write? Their sensitivity to what is happening around them them, their understanding of pressing social issue and their attitude to life which is different from that of the men. 11
Kumari Jayawardena Jayawardena was born and brought up in Sri Lanka. She has had an illustrious academic career. She earned a degree in Political Science from the London School of Economics in 1955. Later she qualified as a Lawyer from London in 1958. She completed her Ph.D on ‘The Labour Movement in Ceylon’ from the London School of Economics. She has taught Politics at the University
11 Ibid
of Sri Lanka and Women and Development Master Courses in the Netherlands. She was an Affliated Fellow of the prestigious Bunting Institute and currently teaches the Women Studies Programme at the Colombo University A leading academic, Kumari Jayawardena (1931) is among the pioneers of the feminist movement in Sri Lanka. Her work is categorised as third world literature and feminists and represents the ideology of feminist philosophies. Her philosophies are native and unique to non-Western societies and are apart from Western feminism. Among her publications are, ‘The Rise of the Labor Movement in Ceylon’, ‘The White Woman’s Other Burden: Western Women and South Asia During British Rule and ‘Embodied Violence: Communalising Women’s Sexuality in South Asia, which she co-edited with Malathi de Alwis. Her major work, Feminism and Nationalism in the Third World was cited by Ms. Magazine in 1992 as one of the “20 most important books of the feminist decades” (1970-1990). Earlier she was selected for the ‘Feminist Fortnight award’ in the United Kingdom in 1986 for it. Since then the book has been widely used by researchers and scholars in Women Studies programs around the world and acknowledged as a key-text of third-world feminism. Jayawardena in her book, Feminism and Nationalism in the Third World, has reconstructed the history of the women’s rights movements in Asia and the Middle East from the 19th century to the 1980s, concentrating on countries like, India, Iran, Egypt, Turkey, China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Philippines & Korea. Through her research, she has established that feminism is not a foreign ideology imposed on the Third World countries by the West but an indigenous one rooted in Asia. It has developed in Asian countries of South Asia & the Middle East where women have struggled since many centuries for equal rights against patriarchal norms and against the subordination of women at home as well as in society. In The White Woman’s Other Burden: Western Women and South Asia During British Rule, Jayawardena re-evaluates those Western women who lived and worked in South Asia during colonial British rule. The book tells the stories of many famous women and also of some unknown women who have been forgotten. As the same time, she also raises some very important issues of race, class and gender in her writings. The American Historical Review says: The overall conception behind this book is so rich and Jayawardena’s insight... is so valid that the juxtaposition
of these women’s lives... makes fascinating reading.12 While American Anthropology says: The White Women’s Other Burden proposes (new materials and new approaches) so clearly and unambiguously ....This substantive, fully realized work calls for our admiration with its lucid narratives style, accessible across disciples without jargon, presenting rarely told stories that individualize yet do not shirk generalization.13 Jayawardena’s book has been translated into Sinhala and Tamil.
Nira Konjit Wickramasinghe
Another noted writer from Sri Lanka is Nira Konjit Wickramasinghe, who is a Professor of Modern South Asian Studies at the University of Leiden in Netherlands. She is a renowned international academician who has also worked as a Professor in the Department of History and International Relations at the University of Colombo, Sri Lanka up to 2009. She completed her education at University of Paris IV – and at the University of Oxford acquiring the doctorate degree in Modern History. Her works include the following books: Sri Lanka in the modern age: A History of contested identities (2006), Civil society in Sri Lanka: New circles of power (2001), Ethnic politics in colonial Sri Lanka, 1927–1947 (1995), University space and values: Three essays'' (2005) and L'Invention du Vetement national au Sri Lanka. Habiller le corps colonise (2006). In her book, Sri Lanka in the Modern Age: A History of Contested Identities, she describes about political unrest of her country. She throws light on the political chaos that took place in Sri Lanka in the late 1970s in the form of Civil war which left the country in shambles. The ethnic crisis in the country, the demand of equal opportunities by the minorities and the failure of the government to fulfil it; was the major cause of conflict. The failure of government to satisfy the minorities of Sri Lanka is the major issue which forms the basis of the entire history of twentieth century Sri Lanka. In the last two
12 Kumari Jayawardena: Biographical information, Centre for Digital discourse and Culture @ Virginia Tech, Retrieved 8 January 2011.
13 Ibid
decades, the liberal and Marxist scholars of the country have tried to focus on the conventional histories of their country. Her book throws lights on the fresh perspectives based on new research carried out by her. But the most important is that Wickramasinghe had focused on the experiences of the people’s sufferings rather than the history of the country. Amita Shastri, a scholar of San Francisco State University states that: (Provides) an informed and sensitive portrayal of evolving identities, belief, perspectives and practices in the state and society in twentieth-century Sri Lanka.... It is exceptional in it’s able and lucid synthesis of wide-ranging research and writing on the subject- much of it is very new and recent.... The narration is done with a deft touch, punctuated with thoughtful insights and details. It is often laced with gentle irony and wit which give it a piquant flavour. 14
Rosemary Rogers was born on 7th December 1932 in Panadura, Sri Lanka to Dutch- Portuguese parents Barbara “Allan” and Cyril Jansz, she currently lives in California, USA. She can be categorised as more of a popular writer rather than a writer of serious literature. She is a best-selling author writing in the genre of historical romance novels. Her debut novel, Sweet Savage Love, published in 1974, became a best seller. Inspired by its success, she published her second novel, Dark Fires within an year. This too was a big success as almost two million copies were sold in its first three months of publication. Rogers is considered as a bold writer who depicts violent passion and emotions and violence. Her heroines are from rich families and they travel to exotic locations and meet important people in the story. Her stories are peppered with rape fantasies with similar plots and themes. Since 1974, she has penned more than twenty seven novels
Thisuri Wanniarachchi
Born on 25th September, 1993 at Colombo in Sri Lanka to a mother who is a sociologist and a father who is a Brigadier in the Sri Lankan army, Thisuri Wanniarachchi published her first novel ‘Colombo Street’ at the age of fourteen. The book went on to get the State Literary Award of Sri Lanka in 2009.making
14 Wicramasinghe, Nira Konjit, Sri Lanka in the Modern Age: A History of Contested Identities. London: Hurst & Co. and Honolulu: University of Hawaii press, 2006. Back Cover
her the youngest recipient to have received it. She is also the youngest nominee for the prestigious ‘International Writers Program’ of the University of Iowa. Her early education was done in Colombo, but after that she moved to Bennington College for pursuing an undergraduate degree in Political Economy and Educational Reform. Colombo Street is a novel about the Sri Lankan civil war and depicts the experiences of children of different social classes and sections of society. The descriptions of the pain and suffering of the young are poignant and reach out to the hearts of the readers. Wanniarachchi’s second novel, The Terrorist Daughter(2014) was published in Sri Lanka in 2014, when she was in the first year at Bennington College. This book too won her many accolades. With the civil war forming the backdrop, the novel, a love story, describes the post-war political scenario of Sri Lanka. According to The Nation (Sri Lanka), “Wanniarachchi uses a platform to discuss, criticize and analyse the post-war Sri Lankan’s political spectrum.”15 At the launch of the book, Dayan Jayatilleka, a leading Sri Lankan political scientist remarked that the book was “one of the most important literary works in post-war Sri Lanka.16 He called it a “road map to reconciliation” and a “manifesto” for the Sri Lankan government. The following, an extract from the novel, is an example of the style of the novelist:
The villages where we live was about a mile towards the north from the town of Killinochchi. Education there was nothing but a dream. The only school in the village had been destroyed during the war. People there were poor, unprivileged and innocent. All villages were forced to support the terrorists. The ones who refused to support the terrorists would be found dead in a farm, or in a drain... Chapter-1017
Not only a writer, Wanniarachchi is also an advocate of educational and political reforms in Sri Lanka. She is a brave and daring female personality and was praised for her courage when she spoke out against the authoritarianism during the President Rajapaksa regime. The Terrorist Daughter which was
15http://www.nation.lk/edition/fine/item/32746-gives-a-powerful-message-of-love-life-and-faith.html
16 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZqBiw8_VPI
17 http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/2889505.Thisuri_Wanniarachchi
launched just 4 months before the starting of the election campaign to defeat Rajapaksa in Sri Lanka, is supposed to have played a crucial role in educating people and creating awareness among them, especially among the youth, regarding the incompetence of the people ruling Sri Lanka. She campaigned for the Presidential Election of Sri Lanka’s 2015 by writing articles. Wanniarachchi believes in educational reforms in Sri Lanka, speaking as the youngest delegate at a discussion for the young politicians organised by World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland in collaboration with Sri Lanka in Colombo, she stressed on the relevance of education for her people and the need for reforms in the educational structure of her country. She highlighted the need for improved inclusion of civic education that gives importance on citizen ethics, consent and respect and also conflict resolution in the curriculum of Sri Lankan schools. Such induction can create sustainable solutions to many problems existing in the country like the prevailing culture of corruption, gender discrimination, sexual harassment and racial tension. Because of her outspoken attitude, prolific personality and writing, she has many fan- followings around the world. British pop artist, Sam Smith is a big fan of her writing as he shares quotes from her writing on his social media accounts. Having grown up in Sri Lanka during the turmoil of the Elam war and a daughter to a Brigadier of Sri Lankan army, Wanniarchchi writes mainly on wars and its aftermath on people. She began writing at the age of ten, but she published her short story “The Road to Horrowpathana” at the age of twelve. It was written after an incident of a terrorist attack on a children’s bus in Horrowpathana in Sri Lanka in 2007 which resulted in the death of 60 children. She was so moved by the incident that she penned it down in the form of a short story. The story became popular throughout the world because of the emotions steeped in it and was discussed in many international writers’ forums. These writers have seen the savage and brutal conditions in their country which has inspired them to pour their emotions and experiences in the form of writing. It is really very hard to survive when your country has continuously suffered Civil war for two decades. But it is a credit and a compliment to the courage of these writers that even though they have faced many difficulties they are still able to make a name for themselves and win and fame not only in their country but internationally. Such women are role- models for women not only of their country but for women around the world.
References
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