Where have all the authors gone
Today’s technology is
writer-friendly, Google will give all the information you need and the
PC will let you cut, chop and erase and replace and paste and delete and
do a hundred things that were denied to the author of yesteryear. But
has that increased the book and poetry output? No I do not think so
Captain Elmo JAYAWARDENA
I am in Singapore conducting some workshops at the Singapore Literary
Festival on writing. My mind retreats to where I belong; Sri Lanka and
my thoughts drift to what the literary scene in my homeland is or where
it is heading. Yes, the ‘Year of English’ was announced and that would
create a positive impact and the masses may be a little closer to taking
a few motivated steps to become better acquainted with the Queen’s
language.
Good thought, timely too. That brings me to the more isolated subject
of English writing in Sri Lanka. We have publishers and distributors and
people who read. Yes, we do have authors and poets too, very good ones
at that.
They come out with excellent books that decorate the shelves at Odels
and such places and have a ‘browse-may-buy’ look at Barefoot and similar
places. Such would be the lifespan, seldom reaching the vast literary
world that spreads across oceans. That’s for the good ones.
The ‘not so good’ gather dust in manuscript form, publishing
expectations dwindling with declining opportunity till the author weary
of recurring disappointments admits defeat and goes into oblivion.
Another could-have-been published author or poet buried.
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Genuine efforts
Are we making any progress? Is there a reasonably navigatable path
for that young writer/poet or the retired literary lover or the house
wife who sits in front of her computer to publish? Can they with a
genuine effort come out with a book that would find a seat on a book
shelf? I doubt.
I could be wrong in my statistics, but if I am somewhere there in the
vicinity of accuracy, last year’s Gratiaen Prize shortlist was all in
manuscript form. Certainly not for the lack of quality, simply because
it is not easy to publish. To be fair by the publishers too, they run a
business and they have to back winnable horses, maybe sure horses. That
leaves the ‘also rans’ in limbo fading away with their aspirations of
becoming successful authors and sorrowfully giving up the quest of a
life’s desire to be recognised as writers and poets.
They get defeated, inheriting mortgaged hopes and vanishing dreams.
It discourages the next wave and they too lament on the ‘who will
publish me’ line which results in a sharp decline of the new writer/poet
who has so much to say and no way to get started.
Are there any answers? Yes everything has an answer. There need to be
some organisation that gathers book lovers and the infant literate under
the same tent. The ‘would be’ authors and the ‘could be’ poets should
become team mates in their search for publishers and distributors. If
the big guns do not fire, look for catapults, the idea is to publish.
There are many pelicans like me around who had trod that difficult
publishing path before, people who can shed some light to the newer
minds. That encouragement is needed for a budding writer to re-believe
and the emerging poet to see a rainbow amidst the clouds of
discouragement and begin to thump back on a key board again.
Who will read your story?
New writers in Sri Lanka have been defeated by just two questions.
“Who will publish my book?” And “who will read my story?”. Or I could
say no answer at all. Then why bother? Let us write for the love of it,
you have a story and you want to place it on print. Just do it. I went
through this mind boggling mire writing an 850 page book and never knew
who would publish it and had no idea who would read it either. It didn’t
matter, I was writing and enjoyed the journey and I knew at the end if
all failed, I could still get some A-4 paper and print it from my
computer and make it compulsory for my two children to read. Yes, I had
the publisher, me, and the audience, my son and daughter and I plodded
on for ten long years. ‘The Last Kingdom of Sinhalay’ was the result and
I humbly say it won me the State Literary Award. My two children, the
planned audience read and some others too may have followed and there by
hangs a tale.
I have too many irons in the fire and too many decades on my
birthday, if not I would have led the charge. But I am always willing to
be a soldier and would be proud to be associated in creating a group
shrouded in literary simplicity. Maybe Artscope would come in and give
the media coverage. Maybe we can find a simple place to gather and get a
Pineapple man to come with his Annassi Basin and a Gram seller to sell
kadala gotu where book lovers could meet and swap ideas.
Annassi and Kadala Gotu
Yes, we can even call that team Annassi and Kadala Gotu
Who knows, reverting to Gray’s Elegy, we may have a mute inglorious
Milton eating pine apple with us or a miniature Khalid Hussieni munching
gram in a corner. Such things are possible when people believe in
themselves. There are so many like you who may read Artscope, aspiring
authors, poets, journalists and the appreciators of literature who would
be willing to look at an Annassi and Kadala Gotu gathering to exchange
ideas and make humble inroads to literature.
Editor Artscope, the first ball I bowl is to you. Swing some thoughts
my way and see how you can score. I like to think that there would be
many who will respond so that you may not have to look for who will
write the next story in your column but will have a well laid buffet to
choose from.
Different flavours
Where have all the authors gone? Gone to graveyards everyone; will
that happen? When will they ever learn? That too is a good question.
Books and poems have to be written; new ideas must float around to give
different flavours to the Sri Lankan literary scene. If they cannot be
published, print them and photocopy them, pass them around and let them
be read. Make ten copies and gift it to ten people. One becomes an
author not when you sell a thousand copies, but when you have what you
wrote in print, photocopied or otherwise.
Be a writer or a poet who carry the courage to write and not one who
dreamt and died with thoughts undisclosed, words deprived of life they
richly deserved.
To be defeated after writing is sad, but it is infinitely sadder to
be defeated before you start.
The writer is the recipient of State Literary Award and Gratiaen
Prize for his literary contributions. What do you think about his
Annassi and Kadala Gotu gathering as a literary team?
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