The Books are here: Where are the authors?

Another chapter of the Colombo International Book Fair has ended, and October, dubbed ‘the month of literature’ (Sahithya Masaya) is already here. The publishers (the big names at any rate) will have reason to congratulate themselves, as well as the caterers, while the crowds will look forward to next year’s ambling from stall to stall in between resting their aching feet at the food stalls. 

Since October is dedicated to literature, I hope they are busy reading the fiction, non-fiction and the poetry they bought at the book fair. Being optimistic, one could put the figure at seventy per cent. Or bring it down to fifty, which is still an impressive figure. It may actually be thirty, which isn’t bad. Anything below that is depressing. 

Many people tell me they have no time to read, which is really a damning condemnation of their priorities. No one will tell you that they have little or no money left to buy books for leisure reading, because that would amount to an admission of incipient and incurable poverty. You can blame inflation, economic mismanagement or anything else under the sun for that, but books will not be priorities for many when the going gets hard (and when has the going ever been easy?). 

You can blame inflation, economic mismanagement or anything else under the sun for that, but books will not be priorities for many when the going gets hard

Development should include art and culture alongside roads and bridges, and it’s unfortunate when those who can afford private libraries and collections will emphasise road building over a reading culture for the masses. This lop sided development will only make us culturally poorer than ever. There are a few drops in this intellectually murky ocean, such as a revamped Colombo Public Library and even a new library for the Welikada Prison, but the overall picture remains dismal. 

A small-scale publisher tells me that it’s so hard to sell quality fiction or non-fiction. People who win literary awards won’t go to someone like him. In any case, the awards are so designed that the author has no choice in the matter and those who award the prize are working with a big name publisher of their choice. 

Is the award more important than the author? This isn’t a fatuous question. When someone wins the Nobel Prize or the Booker, it’s the writer who is always more important. In our case, one hardly remembers the author after the initial flurry of media coverage. Having attended all but one of the September book tamashas, I try to remember in vain a case of a novelist, poet, or a non-fiction author being spotlighted, with their publishers introducing them to the reading public, with live interviews being aired, and giving them time and space on a regular basis so that people remember them and think of them as important. 

We do not care about authors. Writers are having a hard time all over the world. In the West, where writing looks more lucrative because of the best sellers, publishing deals and contracts, many writers are suffering economically and the reason given by all major publishers is Amazon.com. What they don’t tell you is that none of them plan to close the shop and invest in something more lucrative (such as Amazon.com). Book publishing still pays, as it always has. French author Simone de Beauvoir, writing about her publisher Gallimard many years ago, said monsieur Gallimard gave more and more lavish parties each year, and all the writers were invited. But their incomes remain the same while Gallimard keeps getting rich. What she said in a letter to her lover, American novelist Nelson Alagren, was a universal truth. 

I don’t know if our book publishers give parties. Perhaps, the September book fair is their party, though we have to buy tickets and refreshments. But it isn’t just the publishers who are at fault. Books aren’t meant to be just read and thrown away. Only a few will stand the ‘test of time’ and become the kind of text loved by publishers who make money by re-printing them as classics. But millions more are preserved in relative obscurity in libraries, archives and private collections, and they have stories and information of much value. As such, they aren’t entirely forgotten. To each book which ‘lives’ (in publishers’ dreams), there are thousands of ‘dead’ books lovingly looked after by someone, somewhere. 

What about the people who write them? Take it from me, writing is one of the most thankless jobs around, and writing novels or books running into hundreds of pages is hard labour. It’s a lonely job, too. Once it’s done, just try finding someone reliable to proofread or give an opinion. It’s such a thankless task, and only a few ever get rewarded enough in terms of money. Some get rewarded very well, even outrageously. Like everything else in life, rewards for writing books too, are unfair. Many work at it, without ever getting the financial breaks and the recognition they deserve, while others write voluminous potboilers and get into the best seller lists (at least in the West). 

Is the award more important than the author? This isn’t a fatuous question. When someone wins the Nobel Prize or the Booker, it’s the writer who is always more important

Over here, writers generally hope for recognition, not money. That’s where the awards business comes in, but that’s like the lottery. What happens to those who don’t win them and even to those winners in subsequent years? Those who have what it takes to stick through monumental pain and despair to go on writing book after book, year after year, deserve respect, whether they win awards or not. They deserve to be remembered. They do it for the sheer love of writing, nothing more. But do we remember them? 

In this country, the homes of authors Martin Wickremasinghe, W.A. Silva and K. Jayathilake are preserved (in Koggala, Wellawatte and Kannimahara respectively). These were men of some means and unusual determination and perseverance. But what happened to the others? Going back in time, we can start with Piyadasa Sirisena, Munidasa Kumaratunge, P.B. Alwis Perera, Sagara Palansuriya (Kayes), G.B. Senanayake, T.B. Ilangaratne, Mahagama Sekara, Karunasena Jayalath, Monica Ruwan Pathirana and many more. I don’t want to leave out Deeman Ananda, because ‘pulp fiction’ too is a literary genre and he has no successor who can write like him. 

Where did these writers live? Did they own their own homes or live in rented houses? Where they sheltered and worked, finding inspiration to write despite all that life threw at them, is worthy of preserving.  Poet and novelist Mahagama Sekara owned his own house, in the same village as author K. Jayathilake. It was sold by his descendants about a decade ago. No one can blame them for that decision. Preservation of such historic places must come from societies. In government as well as the world of business, there must be people who read the works of these writers and poets, and found inspiration. The impetus for preservation of that heritage must come from them. 

To take an example from cinema, since such heritage isn’t limited to literature, take the case of Dr. Lester James Pieris and his wife Sumithra. They lived in a rented house off Dickman’s Road for several decades, and the situation finally became untenable due to inflation and rising real estate prices. That is where a fund must take over to compensate the owner, restore the premises and open it to the public as an archives and museum. 

It isn’t just homes that need to be preserved. In K. Jayathilake’s ancestral home, now a library and museum, on display are many manuscripts of various authors collected by him over the years. That indefatigable and scholarly monk brought out the nine-volume ‘Sinhala Puwathpath Sangara Ithihasaya’ in the 1960s. He even collected the signatures of prominent writers and editors and left for us an invaluable heritage. 

But the rest are mostly horror stories of neglect and oblivion. An acquaintance told me that someone discovered the poetry manuscripts of Monica Ruwan Pathirana in a gram seller’s cart after her death. If that person had the wits to buy them from the gram seller, where are they now? What do we know about one of the most influential Sinhala poets of our times? (I’ve been trying to piece together biographical information about Lakdasa Wickremasinghe, called the most radical of our poets in English, but I’ll leave English writing out of this discussion. You can’t even a find his photograph). 

I was told that the house, national hero Puran Appu lived in existed somewhere in Moratuwa till the 1970s, very much as it had been a century ago. But it was bought by a businessman and demolished. Not even a photograph of it exists now. If that’s what happens to the legacy of national heroes, celebrated in movies and even stamps, what can you say about writers? 

Over here, writers generally hope for recognition, not money. That’s where the awards business comes in, but that’s like the lottery

The book fair can raise public awareness on the need for such conservation. It can help launch a fund too, with part of the income from ticket sales, for example. The major publishers can get together and invite authors, contemporary as well as those now living in obscurity, to meet the public, with panel discussions on their lives and work. The works of those who are no longer living too can be discussed. The public can be asked to join in a literary quiz. Our insane television is direly in need of a channel giving time to the arts, modeled along BBC lines. Don’t tell me the money isn’t there – why do we always have to be so poor when it comes to culture? 

There are many ways to promote literature. The idea that literature is much more than each year’s award winning books, and that people who write books too, are as important, needs to be promoted. 

It’d be interesting to see how the heritage of authors is being cared for in other counties, and we’ll do in another article before long.