Sri Lanka It's Happening

September 16, 2007

When the publisher's association announced that they are joining hands to create a new award the Swarna Pusthaka (Golden Book) it was greeted with much enthusiasm by authors. They announced a cash prize of 500,000 Rupees and short listed five books by five different authors for the award.

Only Sinhala book published in 2006 were considered. My father's 'Chandraratnege Bawanthara Charikawa' was one of the five short listed books. Godage, one of the leading publishers in the country have a separate award and three books were short listed for that award. 'Chandraratnege Bawanthara Charikawa' was one of them and thus gained distinction by being the only book to be short listed for both award.

Unfortunately my father didn't get the Godage award. Many were expecting that he would get the Swarna Pusthaka but in the end the judges decided not to name a single winner. Thus all five nominees became joint winners.

It is rumoured that the panel was under a great deal of pressure because the 500,000 award is the single biggest award at any art related event in Sri Lanka. Even the highest awards for film makers are much much less than that.

The decision has taken a quite a lot of flak from different quarters but I think it was the right one. If the award had been given to one of the five there would certainly have been a lot more criticism. This way all five authors are winners and no one went home empty handed.

When next year's shortlist is announced I am sure that they will say the prize money will be split amongst all the nominees with one winner getting the biggest piece of the pie while the other four will get progressively smaller awards.

Posted by raditha at September 16, 2007 6:12 AM