Martin Wickramasinghe The celebrated wordsmith

The 130th birth anniversary of celebrated wordsmith Martin Wickramasinghe, who is regarded as one of Sri Lanka’s greatest authors, falls on May 29.

He started writing to newspapers at the age of 16 and by 1914 he wrote his first novel Leela.

Later, in the early stages he wrote novels like Soma, Seetha,  Irangani, Miringuwa and Rohini.

In 1944  he wrote Gamperaliya, followed by Kaliyugaya, Yuganthaya, Viragaya, Bawatharanaya, Madol Duwa and others.

Most of his novels were made into films and translated into English, French, German, Japanese, Russian, Chinese, Dutch, Romanian and Tamil languages.

In 1924 he published his first short story collection titled Geheniyak and later wrote Pawkarayinta Gal Geseema, Apuru Muhuna, Handa Sakki Deema, Mage Kathawa and others.

He also excelled as a journalist of repute while serving as the editor of a leading Sinhala newspaper for more than
15 years.