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| Wednesday, 11 February 2004 |
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Lasting tribute to Anne I want to speak of tenderness I want to speak of tenderness is a unique and lasting tribute paid by 50 writers and friends to one of the most outstanding literary figures in Sri Lanka - Anne Ranasinghe. Unknown to many Anne was born Anneliese Katz in Essen, Germany in 1925. She arrived in Sri Lanka in 1952 fleeing the country of her forefathers in 1939 and finding refuge in Great Britain. At the height of Nazism in Germany she was the only survivor in her Jewish family. After the World War II she married Dr. Ranasinghe and settled down in Sri Lanka. After 44 years Anne returned to Germany in 1983 and read poems on her Jewish memory. Childhood In order to compile the book Gerard Robuchon had approached 50 writers from here and abroad. He invited the writers to contribute on four themes: war, forgiveness, reconciliation, and love. All the themes had an impact on Anne. In her opening contribution "You ask me why I write poems" Anne goes back to her childhood and tells the reader how her father was arrested and his eventual return as a mental wreck. As a creative writer in English Anne has turned out numerous short stories, feature articles, radio plays, and poems. She confesses that poetry is a rare Champagne. Experience "To write poetry there must be an experience that is so intensely felt as to exclude all other forms of writing. Love or anger, fear or remembrance, and above all the perception of great beauty all create that moment which demands, or wakens the demand, for a poem. There is then a period of gestation, a distillation of the experience, and out of this may grow the first words of the poem". I found Mark Amerasinghe's "Last day in death row" quite entertaining and enlightening. The opening line: "That tick-tock, tick-tock, keeps ringing in my ears, spelling out my fast approaching doom". The writer has captured the death row prisoner's feelings when he thinks of his "poor little girl". Two short stories written by mother and daughter duo - Jean Arasanayagam and Parvathi Arasanayagam - have added a new dimension to the collection. They are two of the leading short story writers in Sri Lanka. M.I.C.E. Yasmine Gooneratne writing of M.I.C.E. and men: Sri Lankan English writing's earliest days" tells us how she received a poem titled "From Auschwitz to Colombo penned by Anne Ranasinghe for a university magazine. M.I.C.E. was a Colombo-based group of creative writers that tried to set a pattern on young writers. Kumari Jayawardena's "Leonard Woolfe: A background note" is a comprehensive essay on the author of "Village in the Jungle. The well-researched article will be useful for students of literature and scholars. The other notable contributors include Deloraine Brohier, Senake Bandaranayake, Radhika Coomaraswamy, Alfreda de Silva, Richard de Zoysa, Aparna Halpe, Ashley Halpe, Maithree Wickramasinghe, Punyakante Wijenaike and Rajiva Wijesingha. The book is interspersed with good poems that enhance the value of this collector's item. - RSK
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