Award-winning imagination

Amalshan Gunerathne

For two decades, she teased and tantalized aesthetic taste strings of local literature lovers with her masterfully crafted short-stories. May be short stories were meant to be mouth-watering appetizers for something great, an aesthetic teaser on what is to come. If the verdict of last year's Gratiaen Judge Panel is anything to go by, we are in for an exhilarating aesthetic adventure, as she sets to launch her award winning book later this year.

The book titled, "There is something I have to tell you" was only in manuscript form when it won the coveted award, and with the book launch approaching, the torturous anticipation is almost over.

Two decades have passed since she won her first major award for literature at the age of twenty one at State Literary Awards.

Being looked up to as a prodigy at such a young age has not overwhelmed her or hampered her thirst for writing in any means.

Madubashini Disanayaka Ratnayaka. Picture by Saliya Rupasinghe

Her early achievement encouraged her to keep writing which resulted in her being nominated for coveted Gratiaen prize twice. On both instances, she had to swallow bitter pills, as fail to taste any silverware. However now that her thirst is finally quenched, it is fair to assume that she has finally fulfilled the early promise that she showcased during her younger days.

As she prepares herself for the book launch, Madubashini Disanayaka Ratnayaka, the winner of last year's Gratiean Awards joined with Artscope for our encounter of the week.

Q: Have you always being passionate about writing? How did you venture in to your creative adventures?

A: I have been writing short stories since I was a child. My parents allowed me to write anything and they used to send them to various papers and magazines.

The first collection came, when I collected the already published work and put it into a book.

Q: Was it hard to transform yourself in to a novelist when you are used to short-story format?

A: For me, the transition to novel came through short stories. It was a short story collection which got short-listed for Gratiaen in 2005 that later grew in to a novel. It was a collection of short stories, but those stories were connected.

And it is those stories that later manifested in to a full-length novel. In-fact one scene of the novel is a complete short-story. All the other stories were pulled out, because novel had to stand on its own. But for me, the movement to the novel was through short stories.

Q: Do you think that short-story writing and novel writing are two different crafts altogether?

A: Yes the two crafts are different. Poem or short story is so short that there is no room for mistakes. In a novel even if you make a mistake you can make up for it later.

The beginning of a short story is supposed to be very arresting. And it is important to maintain the intensity through out. But with the novel, the tempo has to be different.

I don't think that same level of intensity can be maintained in a novel.

For instance, short story catches you at a climax of something. But a novel has to be build at a different pace.

If you take character development in a novel for instance, you have room to analyze things. It allows you to go back to the childhood of the character and portray the reasons that lead to eventual incidents.

Q: What drives and motivates you to keep writing?

A: The act of writing is very intense for me. If the story gets boring for me, I would probably be stopping. I won't be writing myself.

I don't think I would have been writing half as much if I had free time, because it is when I am really caught up with work and stressed about things that I feel like writing.

Writing is imagining other people's lives. Everything will have your presence in it. But that will grow in to somebody else's lives.

Q: How important it is to read other people's work, if you want to improve as a writer?

A: You shouldn't write if you are not a reader. You have to read the works of people who are better than you.

If you don't read the works of writers who are better than you, you wouldn't know where you stand. A writer would always keep reading others and then he would know that there are light-years to go to reach that level.

Some writers read works of those who are better than them and feel inferior about themselves, but that shouldn't be the case. It shouldn't be taken as a discouragement. It should be an intensive to work on your craft.

Q: Don't you feel that reading other people's work and being inspired by their work influence the originality of the writer?

A: It doesn't matter where you are on earth; you got to keep looking at the stars. When I wrote my novel I always had Michael Ondaatje's English Patient in my bag. It was the Bible when I did it. Influence is easy, it doesn't mean copy them. My novel is so far away from English Patient.

My novel may not be anywhere near that, but it was there for me to look at. The moment you stop reading you are dead as a writer.

Q: How do you define good fiction?

A: What I call good fiction will leave me a different person. It should make me question and leave me wiser in someway.

Q: Your thoughts on English writers here in Sri Lanka, how should they improve?

A: It is easy to get published here in Sri Lanka. It is easy for us to think that we are good. It is very easy to be complacent. And it is easy to be famous in English writing here in Sri Lanka because there are only few of us.

Therefore it is important to keep reading other people's work and keep working on your skill.

I would also like to establish something like a degree in creative writing here in Sri Lanka. There is great talent in this country.

But if we don't harness and polish that raw talent, it will go to waste. People here write good stuff without proper training.

Some call writing as god given talent and that it just flows naturally. But it is not quite that, you have to work on your craft and improve.

Q: There are lots of controversies that surround local award ceremonies these days, your thoughts on the dilemma.

A: The controversies are important. Not bitter ones. When there is an award ceremony, there has to be people who agree and don't agree. Even during last year's Gratiaen they made it very clear that the decision wasn't a unanimous one. What is important is that the award means a lot to the writer. It meant lot me. You feel like writing more.

Q: What is your next move? Do you intend to stick with novel writing or experiment with something else?

A: It will be another novel. Once you get used to that form, it is bit hard to get back to the short story writing. Right now the priority is to get the book out.

Q: When you won the award for manuscript, Gratiaen recommended changes that would make it a better a novel. Do you intend to make those changes in the final publication?

A: Yes I remember Delon Weerasinghe saying "you should murder your darlings to make it a better creation".

There will be minor changes. But what I thought was that I won't make drastic changes to this edition. Because people have a right to know what won the Gratiaen. The second edition might change, depending on reader feedback.