Professor Ratnapala's world of books
by Professor Sunanda Mahendra
 LITERATURE: As soon as I heard the sad demise of our good
friend and colleague Professor Nandasena Ratnapala, I went down the
memory lane stopping myself in a bookshop in Maradana where I saw him
chatting to a bookshop owner planning to bring about a periodical
dedicated to book reviews.
Professor Ratnapala took time off from his business chat to talk to
me about his project. At that time, if I am not forgetful, he was one of
the assistant lecturers in Sinhala studies attached to the then
Vidyodaya University, where he was trying his best to help the
undergraduates create an awareness of the recent trends in creative
writing and literary criticism.
 As such this lofty project was designed to publish various types of
book reviews in order to inculcate a better taste in literary
appreciation, a legacy which he earned as an undergraduate under the
tutelage of professors Sarachchandra and Siri Gunasinghe, being a
participant of the widely known creative classes honoured by those who
have followed them and remember as memorable happenings on the campus
those days.
This taste building function was undertaken by Nandasena Ratnapala
with the intention of helping the young undergraduate enter into a world
of books which he himself read during his undergraduate days.
To cut a long story short I promptly write a review and posted to
Ratnapala who replied me in acceptance indicating that he was happy and
he wanted more to come. But it was an unfortunate event that said
periodical titled Grantha Vichara failed to sell well and the publisher
abandoned the idea of continuing the project.
Prolific writer
He was a prolific writer of articles on literary activities and
creative works. In this direction he began as a short story writer and a
poet cum translator. He was well remembered for his first collection of
stories titled Noliyu Pota (published by Saman publishers in 1962).
Followed by this success, he brought out a second collection of short
stories titled Ridi Poru (1969) where a number of stories embedded
experiences of his studies linked with some of the early settlers like
the *Veddas* in Dambane and their vanishing mannerisms and customs.
As a lecturer in Sinhala studies he was also interested in looking at
the folklore studies from a new point of view which he had recorded in
his collection of essays titled in English as 'Folklore in Sri Lanka'.
He was always interested in the study of folk tales and folk poems
since his undergraduate days and to his credit culminated in the
compilation of three collections of Sinhala folk poems. He was quite
known among the Advanced Level students at the formative stages of his
career as a young lecturer, as a giver of a helping hand, being a
commentator to the prescribed text-books for examinations, especially in
Sinhala literature.
He told me once that he was forced to give up the tiring habit of
writing commentaries to prescribed books as he had lost quite a time
engaged in the physical work and less time to serious research studies
and works, which included his second phase in the literary career where
he changed his profession from a popular literary critic to a popular
sociologist in search of some areas so far neglected by the conventional
type of researcher in the field of sociology.
Perhaps he was influenced by his studies abroad which he changed
while he was reading for his earned doctoral work, PhD studying in a
German University on socio - religious studies linked with literary
sources like Attha Katha.
This was a grave turning point in his university career as well as
the other interlinked research projects. His change of position from a
lecturer in Sinhala to a lecturer in sociology did not by any means
hinder him from literary and creative activities.
With the cardinal changing of his position of lectureship from the
literary scholar discipline to the more significant career of the
sociologist lectureship, he had the opportunity to introduce newly the
subject area called criminology which he believed as inseparable from
the modern sociological studies belonging to the discipline of social
sciences as known in modern universities.
He brought out several critical books pertaining to the studies of
novels and short stories with bearings on these sociological aspects.
Sinhala novel
During his early career as a young writer one thing that I remember
well is that his translation of the play titled Pissaro by Sheridan
which influenced the well-known Sinhala writer W.A. Silva to write the
popular historical Sinhala novel titled Vijayaba Kollaya, where Silva
had actually plagiarized not only the theme of the original but also the
inner characteristics transforming the play into a novel.
Professor Ratnapala was one of the pioneers in the effort to
introduce the method of understanding modern short stories. His work,
Ketikathawe Muladharma (elements of the short story) which runs to not
more than hundred pages outlines briefly the critical approach to the
genre in the way that the two critics Austin Warren and Cleanth Brooks
outlined in their work 'Understanding Fiction'.
Though this book was widely used in the late sixties by the students
and teachers, the trend changed to more serious critical works followed
by the creations of such writers as Kafka. Then come his two collections
of free verse which did not become as popular as his short stories and
novels due to several reasons.
His first collection of poems is titled Maranin Eha and the second as
Antaravai. He wrote several critical works on the free verse genre and
its tradition emphasizing that the creative roots may lie in our soil as
well as observed similarly in various other parts of the world.
Then being a student of Japanese and German literature he attempted
to introduce the poetic patterns and visions in such poetic traditions
as Haiku and Tanka in Japanese oral literature.
He was also an experimentalist in the field of novel writing with his
first novel titled Nodanimi Kavara Dosa (1976) revolving round issues
pertaining to the marital barriers of the modern complex society where
man is made to hide himself or isolate from his outer world.
He was one of the indefatigable writers who attempted to uncover
almost all the possible literary avenues and sociological sources with
the intention of reforming the pitfalls of society. Being a bilingual
writer he had left a massive collection of works both in English and in
Sinhala for posterity.
As a mark of gratitude some of his admirers and students brought out
a collection of essays on various aspects such as literature, history,
anthropology, folklore and philosophy in honour of his service to those
subject areas aptly titled as Seva Manjari [anthology for the services].
The death was a cruel blow on him at a stage when he was quite active
despite his physical sicknesses.
[email protected] |
