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Smudged Skeletons to Banana Tree Crisis

DREAM: Isankya Kodituwakku, an honours Maths graduate at Kenyan College, Ohio saw her childhood dream come true when she launched her first short story collection, "The banana tree crisis" at the National Library Services Board yesterday.

Kodituwakku who studied Mathematics for her Advanced Level at the Visakha Vidyalaya, Colombo, reminisces about her love for writing which blossomed in her at a tender age of ten years.

As children her obsession was shared by her elder sister Manikya. Unlike her sister who is now studying Law in Australia, Kodituwakku is determined to make writing her future career one day. She will leave for the University of California shortly to follow a Masters in Fine Arts in writing.


Isankya Kodituwakku with Banana tree crisis. Picture by Saman Sri Wedage

She started off by imitating the popular childhood reads, Agatha Christie and Famous Five, and scribbling up her own narratives. She was glued to books all the time from the age she started to learn to read, she recalls.

Her serious writings began when she accidentally enrolled with one of the small but famous creative writing colleges in the US to do Maths and International Studies after her Advanced Level.

"I was selected for Physical Science at the Sri Jayawardenepura university. But I decided to leave for Ohio when I was offered a scholarship by the Kenyan College. I later learned that it to be one of the famous places to learn writing," she says.

Going back to her school days, she recollects with respect her English teachers in school who had been her greatest inspiration.

Chitra Rodrigo, wife of the eminent diplomat Nihal Rodrigo was one of her teachers at Ladies College. "She knew a great deal about literature and contemporary writing. She was a great influence in my life," she recollects.

Nirmali Wickremasinghe, Principal of Ladies College who taught them English in Grade 10 was also instrumental for her current resolve. Teachers Kamini Lafir and Charlet Jayatilleke of the LC are two role models in her life.

She travelled abroad during 1988 and 1991 with her father Dr. Karunasena Kodituwakku on his diplomatic missions. She received primary education in Japan and in South Korea.

"I remember my school in Japan, they dedicated a lot of time for reading. It helped a lot to inculcate the reading habit in me at a very tender age."

The College in Ohio conducts popular creative writing workshops and she had managed to persuade them to enrol her in few of these sessions. Recognising her talent and passion for writing, supervisors allowed her to do fiction for the college thesis.

"I got highest honours for the thesis," she says with excitement.

Her thesis 'Smudged skeletons' was based on reminiscence of her childhood during the JVP insurgency.

My father was a Vice Chancellor at the Sri Jayawardenepura University at that time and a few Vice Chancellors were killed during that time. We lived in fear, she says.

She hopes to publish her thesis one day.

"This took me two years to research and complete. Still I think there is a lot to be done to make it readable."

Talking of her short story collection which was released yesterday ,she says the works were purely fiction. Her experiences with a local humanitarian organisation on tsunami relief had moulded certain characters in her stories. "The 'Banana tree crisis' comes from all geographic areas and social classes of Sri Lanka."

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