Of POLITICS & POETICS

Sajitha PREMATUNGE

The best way to introduce him is in his own words a ‘Sinhala Buddhist chauvinist’. “These are labels given by those who have not bothered to read my writing,” says Dr Gunadasa Amarasekara.

He is a prominent Sinhala writer, poet and essayist and one of the founders of the Peradeniya School of Literary Tradition. His subject matter and style have been controversial while his political outspokenness has set him apart, while also subjecting him to much criticism. Daily News Artscope spoke with him on everything from politics to poetics.

Q: Do you believe that the works of Sri Lankan English writers reflect Sri Lankan culture?

A: I don’t think so. Judging by what I have read, they don’t reflect Sri Lankan culture, attitudes or the true picture of the country. A majority of Sri Lankan writing that takes place in the current setting is rather superficial. This is an attempt of the so called ‘Colombo 7’ crowd to write about rural Sri Lankan life, only succeeding at a tourist eye view. The writers lack experience.

Dr Gunadasa Amarasekara. Picture by Sudath Nishantha

Q: What do you think about contemporary awards and literary festivals?

A: The majority of the contemporary awards and literary festivals cater to the so-called international audience. It is a hoax that has nothing to do with the intellectual life of this country. The local literary festivals, for that matter, are also carnivals. They have nothing to do with serious, professional literature. Any third rate writer can secure an award.

Literature is an integral part of a country’s intellectual culture. Standards in literature cannot be maintained as long as these bogus awards and festivals are in existence.

Q: How do you take criticism levelled at you for not writing in English?

A: I dare not engage in creative work in English for the simple fact that it is difficult enough to express myself creatively in my own mother tongue. Besides, I believe that justice can be done, to a country and its people, only by writing in the language of the masses or you run the risk of sounding artificial. Writing involves having a dialogue with the audience. That, I think, can best be done in the language of the people and not a foreign language.

Some may argue that English is a recognised language in Sri Lanka. However the local readership for English literature in Sri Lankan is microscopic. Or you could write to a foreign audience. A writer should not write in the hopes of securing an international audience. A writer’s primary function should be to create a dialogue with the majority of his or her own country. Writing for an international audience has become a business racket. I neither want to write to a microscopic audience nor an international one.

Q: You are quoted as saying ‘using English is a sign of inferiority complex’. Please elaborate.

A: I still stand by the statement, which is quite true to this day. Over the last 30 years Sri Lanka has produced a monolingual generation. And with the emphasis now being placed on English, the young generation has developed an inferiority complex, hence the word Kaduwa. This notion has been drilled into the peoples’ psychology. We need English only as a tool of communication and as a means of acquiring knowledge. There is no argument that English is the global language in terms of knowledge acquisition. We must learn English with this objective in mind. Not for mere show or as qualification to shine above the rest and prove ourselves worthy of the attentions of the west.

In fact language is dynamic and most foreigners would consider our version of English rather ‘bookish’. English in this part of the world is a dead language, having too small a group of speakers for it to evolve. Sri Lanka can never make English a living language.

Q: Isn’t denouncing English a sure way of shutting ourselves out from the rest of the world?

A: English must not be denounced. But we must denounce the wrong emphasis placed on English. The middle class have been given this warped idea that anyone can land a job with English. A few decades ago this would have applied, when only a handful was competent in the language. But this is not the case now.

What is being promoted now is a job-oriented English not knowledge-oriented English, which can be very damaging. English embodies a storehouse of culture, thousands of translations of other cultures, which are being completely ignored. However, it is my belief that, in about 50 years the global language is going to be Chinese. The centre is already shifting from the West towards East.

Q: You have often been accused of being racist and writing largely to Sinhala Buddhists.

A: A good way of describing me is as a ‘Sinhala Buddhist chauvinist’. This is a label given by those who have not bothered to read my writing. I am not a racist by any means. As I said before I choose to deal with the majority of the people in this country and that majority happens to be Sinhala.

In fact most of the population including Tamils, Muslims and Burghers speak Sinhala, some even better than Sinhala people themselves. For the benefit of the rest, who can’t understand, texts can be translated.

Q: Among literary genres which is most effective?

A: Every genre has its own effect. I totally agree with Paul Sartre when he said that the novel is a form of committed literature. The function of poetry is different from that of the novel. To put it in crude way, poetry is the language of heart, while the novel is the language of the heart and head both.

But Sinhala literature has achieved a cross between these two genres. For example Sarachchandra’s Malagiya Aththo is not a novel. It is a poetic narrative. We have not been able to reproduce writing of this kind.

Q: What do you think of Nisandas (free verse) and modern Sinhala poetry?

A: Poets are not made overnight. A great poet is a phenomenon. The last person to have written any kind of modern poetry is Cumaratunga Munidasa. There is no modern Sinhala poetry at all to speak of, only pathetic imitations. As for Nisandas, it is an imitation of the Western ‘free verse’, which has lost its own initial glamour. Free verse, even in the West was a kind of fashion. A system of literature cannot just be transplanted. Sinhala poetry has evolved over thousands of years and has a strong tradition. This tradition is not something that can be ignored.

Q: Should literature evolve according to times?

A: Literature should certainly reflect the times. Otherwise it loses its function. A writer is primarily an intellectual, who is intensely engaged in what is happening in society, its politics and culture. Literature, whether poetry or prose, is a by product of this intense engagement.

This is exactly why English writing in Sri Lanka seems concocted, the writers are not involved in the intellectual and cultural life of the country.

Q: Should Sinhala poetry make use of colloquial language?

A: As I said before the language of poetry has a long tradition and a poet has to think in terms of that entire tradition.

The purpose of poetry is to produce rasa. For that the poet has to be familiar with the connotations and associations of the language, its rhetoric. The only way to master this is through awareness of the tradition.

On the other hand the language of poetry evolves through usage, otherwise it would be a dead language. Through usage colloquial language derives new meaning. Modern poets should be equally competent in both the modern usage and the traditional.

Q: In Bhava Geetha and Avarjana you have attempted to bring rhythm out of contemporary speech. Wouldn’t using contemporary language demean poetic quality and ‘purity’?

A: Not if handled properly. In both Bhava Geetha and Avarjana I have developed a metre, the Pasmath Viritha. This is derived from folk poetry. It’s a very powerful metre, evident not only in Thovil Kavi but old poetic Asnas such as Siyaba Asna and Kuveni Asna, written in the Kandyan period. This is referred to as Vruththa Gandhi, which means there is a touch of music in it. It’s a hybrid of poetry and prose. Not a very ornate metre, as in Salalihini Sanadeshaya, but ideal for expressing contemporary experience. It has a sort of immediacy.

Q: In Asakda Kava you fall back into an older form of diction. What is the point of art that can be appreciated only by a handful of scholars?

A: The language of Asakda Kava is not a dead language. Brian Huff has said that poetry is a ‘learned art’. One can neither write nor appreciate Sinhala poetry without having a thorough knowledge of the language.

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