The Gratiaen Prize, the most prestigious literary prize in Sri Lanka for creative writing in English, is in its 29th edition this year. The Prize is overseen by the Gratiaen Trust which was founded in 1992 by the renowned novelist Michael Ondaatje. The Trust, of which John Keells Foundation is the primary sponsor, works to recognize and foster creative writing in English and literary translations by writer’s resident in Sri Lanka. 

The Shortlist for the 2021 Gratiaen Prize will be announced at an event on Monday 23rd May, at 6.00pm at the British Council Library, Colombo. The British Council has been the venue partner for the Shortlist Event since the inception of the Prize. This event is open to the Public. There will be a panel discussion with the long listed writers followed by the announcement of the Shortlist by the Jury.

Shyam Selvadurai is the Chair of the 2021 Gratiaen Prize Jury and the creative writer on the panel. A Canadian author of Sri Lankan origin, his award-winning debut novel Funny Boy was recently made into a film for which he co-wrote the award winning screenplay.  The author of the novels Cinnamon Gardens, Swimming in the Monsoon Sea and The Hungry Ghosts, his work has been translated into nine languages and published worldwide. His new novel Mansion of the Moon will be published by Knopf in May 2022. 

Keshini Jayawardena, the informed reader on the Gratiaen Prize 2021 jury, is a voracious reader of literature. A  graduate of the London School of Economics, she is a senior banker and consultant  on leadership, diversity, and inclusion.

Maduranga Kalugampitiya, the academic on the Gratiaen Prize 2021 jury, is a Senior Lecturer and Head of the Department of English, University of Peradeniya, with interests in the philosophy and politics of  language, textual interpretation, current socio-political issues and the humanities.

This year, seven writers have been longlisted for the Prize. 

A Place Called Home – Uvini Atukorala [unpublished manuscript]

These stories are quintessentially Sri Lankan, explore Sri Lankan identity, and what it means to belong. They feature Sri Lankans of diverse ages, occupations, ethnicities and religions living within the country and at times outside of it, and examine what it takes to call a place home. 

All of the Oranges – Marianne David [unpublished manuscript]

This collection of poems moves through all the stages of grief - denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. What is grief really, when we unwrap it, but love? And what is love, if not a garment covering our nakedness, stitched through with loss, fear, remorse, and intertwined threads of hope? All these emotions are offered in the form of poetry here. 

An Unmarriageable Man – Ashok Ferrey [published novel]

A woman in full-length mink sweeps up to Sanjay de Silva and scribbles her number on a piece of paper. 'Call me,' she says. She doesn't bother to ask his name. This is a novel about young Sri Lankans in London - but at its heart is the subject of grief: how each of us copes in our own inimitable way; how in the end you find that grief is only the transmutation of love, of the very same chemical composition - liquid, undistilled - the one inevitably turning to the other like ice to water.

The Birth Lottery and Other Surprises – Shehan Karunatilaka [unpublished manuscript]

An anthology of twisted tales about Sri Lanka’ many pasts and its possible futures, the stories feature an eclectic cast of Sri Lankan rock stars, robots, colonials, soldiers, housemaids, corporates, lovers, gangsters, presidents, prisoners, cannibals and time travellers. Each story aims to entertain and surprise, mixing absurdity with pathos, while playing with genre, voice and reader expectations. The collection will be published by Hachette, India and Little, Brown UK in 2022/23.

The Lanka Box – Ciara Mandulee Mendis [Unpublished manuscript]

The Lanka Box is a collection of short stories about the power of human connections and collisions – collisions that burst into burning fragments of pain and explode into a million beautiful hues. Here are the voices of the people you have already met and smiled with, but whose stories you thought you would never hear - the friend of the activist, the hapless charlatan on an estate, and the smiling monk in the train. This is the story of mediating life in a postcolonial, postwar Sri Lanka. 

Talking to the Sky - Rizvina Morseth de Alwis [unpublished manuscript]

Set in contemporary Sri Lanka, Talking to the Sky tells the story of a Muslim family caught between modernity and rising conservatism against the backdrop of growing anti-Muslim sentiment and the fragmentation of a community leaning heavily towards Wahhabism. As the country reels from the shock of the Easter attack, Aisha learns that her son Aqib is missing, setting in motion a firestorm of gossip and speculation. As the once estranged family comes together to look for him, Aisha and her daughter Emaan also undertake a journey examining their faith, family, and love. 

Pictures I Couldn’t Take - Vivimarie Vanderpoorten [unpublished manuscript]

A collection of poems that captures fleeting moments, thoughts, visions, sounds and insights: those moments you want to hold on to, but cannot, because they hold in them the balance between pain and pleasure, gain and loss, praise and blame, and fame and disrepute. With irony and compassion, the poems weave in and out of the spaces between love and its ending, war and its end, need, hunger, attachment and letting go. 

The  2021 Gratiaen Prize will be awarded at an event on 22nd June 2022.

The Gratiaen Trust is grateful to its principal sponsor, John Keells Foundation, the British Council, Wijeya Newspapers Limited and TNL Radio for their unwavering support for the work of the Trust.