Fascinating universality
 While
writing on globalization last week, Sunethra Rajakarunanayake came to my
mind as a unique Sinhala writer, who captured the phenomenon of
globalization more accurately. She emerged in the literary field in the
1980s. Apart from a career as a professional writer she has contributed
to the newspapers as a freelance journalist and a translator. She has
written a number of books including some translations. She is bilingual
and writes in both languages, Sinhala and English.
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Sunethra Rajakarunanayake |
Sunethra is special in the field of Sinhala literature, as her focus
is rather more universal comparing to most of the contemporary Sinhala
writers. She often sits in a middle point and narrates, allowing readers
to acquire the essence of her philosophy. There are many books of
Sunethra which I love to talk about, but I will only take two in this
instance. Prema Puranaya (Legend of Love) and Nandithaya (Bliss) clearly
show off Sunethra's way of universal thinking. Nandithaya has been
translated into English by Vijitha Fernando as The Chameleon.
In Prema Puranaya , Sunethra sets her small short stories like
narratives in different parts of the world and introduces vastly
different characters. The thread that ties up all together is love,
which is something universal. She never restricts the act of love. She
expresses a wide range of relationships, which are sometimes very simple
and sometimes unimaginably complicated. She sets her novel around the
world. Lahore, San Francisco, Bihar, and Khajuraho are few of them. This
factor would be enough to recognize how interestingly cosmopolitan her
novel is. Yasmine Goonarathne in "Celebrating Sri Lanka Women's
writing", describes her as '.....much traveled...an overtly feminist
journalist whose stories are sophisticated, feisty and funny...A Sinhala
novelist whose writing is sexually frank.'
Sexuality gained a new colour under the theme of globalisation. It
was moved from taboo to explicit and seen as liberation and the new
freedoms remained something of a keynote in folk memory of the time;
hippies, the political upheavals in various countries, the boom of the
pop culture, fashion and media. Attitudes were changed towards
relationships of people and sex was no longer a taboo but an essential
part of humanity. The theme of Prema Puranaya can also be applied to
Nandithaya , which presents a crowded canvas, filled with characters of
many nationalities tenuously linked by loneliness and the need for
social warmth in the immensity of a prosperous, consumerist Beijing.
Among these four women, Thai, American, Italian and Indian, interaction
is confined to an occasional shared meal, going shopping or sightseeing
and laughing together over the experience and acquaintances they have in
common.
Into this footloose and fancy-free community erupts the anarchic
Nanditha, a Sri Lankan. He deliberately interferes in the lives of the
women and hoodwinks them. Nandithaya apparently presents the effect of
globalisation in the Chinese context. Up to what extent have they been
Americanized? Nigerian critic Omolara Leslie mocks claiming as "the
shining faith that we are all Americans under the skin".
The influence of American culture has changed the life style of the
Chinese. And Rajakarunanayake stresses the grave efforts of Chinese to
learn English and to migrate to America. There are a variety of
procedures that they have designed to achieve this goals. On the other
hand in this high paced Americanized society a soft spoken and wicked
tyrant like Nanaditha can easily fulfil his wishes. Lies, which he tells
to the women, have been carefully made to cover the requirements of the
Asian value system (good education, a highly reputed family as
Nanditha's feudal one and his multi talents). As the pioneer effort of
this kind of writing in the literary canon of Sri Lanka, Sunethra's
novels fill a long-term gap. Sunethra Rajakarunanayake's has proved that
Sinhala novel has not remained absolutely static. |
