Random jottings on literary award ceremonies
The entire month of September it looked was devoted to local literary
activities. In the first place the international Book Fair was held for
one whole week. Quite a number of people flocked to buy books and to
have a look at what was happening there. It looked as if people liked to
read books, get to know more what one should know about books and
writers.
Several books were launched too. Some writers launched a number of
books. Perhaps you may not know that one university lecturer launched 17
books. This may be a record kept over the years. A single individual may
not be able to write 17 books for his entire span of life. Some senior
professors, if I remember right, scoffed at taking it in as a churn of
trivial stuff off a factory machine.
May it be so, let us come to the second item in my agenda. This is a
cursory comment on a university literary award ceremony. Universities
are meant to be pioneers in literary trendsetting. The aim of this
ceremony was to select the best novel, short stories and poetry.
Amazingly no award was given for the best literary research publication.
Several university dons were occupied with such projects.
A university award ceremony need not stoop down to the triviality of
an annual prize giving. This event was not even culminated by a key note
address. This is a bleak situation in the academic field. We need to
rediscover a sort of a new climate for opinion creation in literary
activities. Another plus mark for those who organize this event may not
be the main factor.
Then comes another event organized by a publisher. This too happened,
the participants pointed out, as just another insignificant event in the
literary field. True we got to have a broad margin of liberalism in
these events. But the crux of the matter is that the organizers should
possess a positive ideology transcending the mere promotion of their own
favorites as their publications. It is whispered that certain parochial
groups have been empowered with the seat to judge at their discretion
the books they want for awards.
The next glorious literary event of the year happened to be the book
publishers’ literary award for the best novel written in the previous
year. Once again the board of judges was picked at random, including non
literary personalities too. The ultimate selection of the award winning
novel happened to be controversial.
Perhaps the consensus of view is that these literary award ceremonies
have directly or indirectly influenced the selection of some of the
award winning books for the annual state literary event held under the
President’s patronage. He may not be fully aware of what the cultural
ministry is scheduled to perform. But if he makes enquiries I am pretty
sure he would feel sorry. Though I am sure of the President’s knowledge
on world literature, I am not too sure whether any of his close
associates has ever helped him gauge some of the evil effects of the
ministry.
Though there are certain discrepancies in the selection of creative
works for awards, I am happy to see that two of the State Awards were
outstanding. The award for the best research work titled Vaddo by
Chandrasri Ranasinghe and the Sahitya Ratna Award for Professor W. S.
Karunatilaka were genuine and superb.
It is the duty of the board of selection to be transparent in these
literary activities. I also felt that the right climate for a literary
discourse was a failure The ministry had overlooked the need to know the
literary trends, instead a bureaucratic frame emerged once again in the
same old beaten truck. Are we doing the right kind of literary and
cultural activities during the particular period of September?
As the English critic Alan Tate once pointed out, this may lead to
understand the stance of the man of letters in the modern world. He
raised certain issues relevant to us. What should the man of letters be
in our time, we should have to find the answer in what we need him to
do? He must do first what he has always done; he must recreate for his
age the image of man, and he must propagate standards by which other men
may test that image, and distinguish the false from the true.
Further as Tate points out, the man of letters must be able to
distinguish the difference between mere communication and attempt to
arrive at a rediscovery of the human condition of his own state of
living.
He must discriminate and defend the difference between mass
communication, for the control of men, and the knowledge of man which
literature offers us for human participation. In this climate of opinion
it is pertinent to ask the question; shouldn’t the man of letters engage
in a rediscovery of his own living pattern?
This rediscovery I assume is the need of the time as far as literary
activities are concerned. I sincerely feel that the vast sum of money
spent on awards and ceremonies should be geared towards this
rediscovery.
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