Sri Lankan books hit best selling list as a result of 'Srilit'

Naomi Gunasekara in London

UNITED KINGDOM: Sri Lankan books have hit the best-selling list at Foyles Bookshop Charring Cross as a result of 'Srilit,' an ongoing Sri Lankan literature promotion being held in London as part of a wider Sri Lanka promotion titled 'Refreshingly Sri Lanka.'

"We've been delighted with the response for the cream of Sri Lankan writing.

People have been quick to buy titles that are not normally on sale," said Vivienne Wordley, Customer Director at Foyles.

According to Geoffrey Dobbs, organiser of 'Srilit,' the book festival endeavours to achieve two things: one is to raise awareness among the people in England of the breadth and depth of Sri Lankan writing in English and the other is to attract people to visit Sri Lanka as a result of their exposure to Sri Lankan writing.

'Srilit,' which has on display books from the catalogue '100 Best Sri Lankan Books,' had on sale an eclectic collection of Sri Lankan titles ranging from Romesh Gunasekera's latest book 'The Match' to Sir Christopher Ondaatje's 'Woolf in Ceylon', Arthur C Clarke's 'The Reefs of Taprobane', Leonard Wolf's 'Village in the Jungle' and a translation of Martin Wickremasinghe's acclaimed novel 'Madol Duwa'.

"These books may not necessarily be the 100 best books on Sri Lanka. But I think they are probably the 100 most interesting on Sri Lanka.

"We hope to give people coming for the exhibition a wide choice of Sri Lankan writing in English. We've got biographies, fiction, history, art, poetry, architecture, cuisine, travel, lifestyle and children's books," Mr Dobbs told the Daily News.

The festival answered a much-felt need for a Sri Lankan book festival in London, said 67-year-old Hari Kirinde, who is an avid reader of Sri Lankan titles. "Some of these books are excellent. I have been away from Sri Lanka for a long time and events like these help me stay in touch with the younger generation of Sri Lankan writers.

"I wish there was a place where they can display these books on a permanent basis, may be at the High Commission. I see a lot of Sri Lankan shops here but none of them sell books," Mr Kirinde said. Although not many books were produced in English by Sri Lankans during their colonial past, writers like Booker Prize winner Michael Ondaatje, Booker-shortlist Romesh Gunasekera and winner of several Canadian literary awards, Shyam Selvadurai, have contributed immensely towards bringing Sri Lankan writing to the international arena.

Sri Lanka became a well-known producer of English literature only in the 1980s, producing 32 works between 1982 and 1992.

"This may seem rather late considering that Sri Lanka had been a British colony for one and a half centuries," said Sir Christopher Ondaatje, writer, publisher and literary critique, presenting a paper on 'The Contribution of Contemporary Sri Lankan Writers to English Literature' at Foyles on Monday.

According to Sir Christopher, the reason behind Sri Lanka's late advent to the English-writing world is the feeling among the Ceylonese that English was a "foreign language." But things change as English becomes a link language rather than the language of the coloniser.

"As English became the most powerful language in the world today, it helped Sri Lankans to escape that self-consciousness that English was the language of someone else," said the retired financier, who now devotes most of his time to travel and the administration of the Ondaatje Foundation, pointing out that between 1993 and 2006, Sri Lankan authors have produced 72 works as opposed to the 31 published between 1975 and 1981.

'Srilit' also had photographs of Sri Lanka on display at the book festival.