Book on Lankan experience in three languages

INDIA: In a fresh effort to tell Sri Lanka’s story through the three primary languages of that country, the National Book Trust yesterday released an collection of short stories compiled by Professor Rajiv Wijesinha, till lately a languages don at Sabaragamuwa University in the island.

At a function at the India International Centre to release Bridging Connections- An Anthology of Sri Lankan Short Stories, former JNU professor SD Muni said: “It’s an innovative and courageous effort. Innovative because it deals with the spectre of conflict and ethnic tension.

It’s an effort to put together stories which reflect ethnic identities and social dilemmas of the Sri Lankan society.” The function was presided over by Sri Lankan High Commissioner to India C R Jayasinghe.

The book - the result of Wijesinha’s attempt to compile Sri Lankan literary pieces in English, Sinhala and Tamil - contains 25 short stories in translation, divided into three sections emphasising the original language in which the stories were written.

Writer Namita Gokhale said, “I think it’s remarkable in the unselfconscious way these stories have been strung together. I think what Wijesinha has achieved in terms of the unity and uniformity in translating works from different languages is something which is not easy to achieve.”

In his comments on the collection of the stories, Muni said: “The Sinhala stories bring out caste, class differences that are inherent in Lankan society and the Tamil stories bring out the scars of ethnic conflict, instances of humiliation.”

Wijesinha accepted that the book “does not have enough in terms of the root cause of ethnic conflict,” and the political side to it but said, “There are stories like ‘Drama’ which speak about political responses to problems.” Wijesinha has been actively involved in promoting creative writing in Sri Lanka.