Surrounded by authors in Sri Lanka, it's literary (literally) paradise.
A shorter newsletter written between coffee shops, koththu joints and the beach.
A few days after I landed here, I got to watch what happens to a country that wakes up after triple disasters: church bombings, a body blow to tourism by a pesky virus, and a citizen-led political revolution sparked by an economic collapse.
I was lucky to attend the Gratiaen Awards a lens through which one could see the groundswell of writers, and an education system catalyzing this crazy chemical reaction of creativity. Not to mention an advertising industry that has bounced back with ferocity.
This is my newsletter —thanks for subscribing!— so permit me to sound like a travelogue in this edition. I grew up here. I walked the railway tracks by the beach before the marine drive sliced through the quiet streets on which we played soft-ball cricket. Sitting in a tuk-tuk swaggering through the traffic doesn’t scare me; in fact I love the ‘air conditioned’ passenger seat even with the occasional monsoon rain pelting sideways at me.
But I really wanted to write about what the writing scene is turning out to be.
My friend Tyronne Devotta asked me to go through manuscript. He tells me he’s already writing the third book in the trilogy. (TD will kill me of I reveal what it’s about.) Let’s put it this way: If I print this book and add a name like Grisham to it, you wouldn’t know. I’m not kidding! The characters and plot twists are that good.
Lal Medawattegedera, another friend who started off as a copywriter, had his book, When Ghosts Die, shortlisted for a Gratiaen Award this year. (He won this same award in 2012.)
Shannel Pinidiya, an A-level student (High School) gave me a book she recently published, set in World War II. Dear Leo is her second book!
Barefoot, that iconic shop and magnet for tourists and the diaspora, has so many wonderful books by local authors, I warn you to leave your wallet behind.
I visited a school, my usual modus operandi when here. I met Gateway College CEO, Dr. Harsha Alles and we discussed how schools are approaching the juggernaut of AI in education. He too believes we must move fast. I spent two minutes in his office and realized I had known a branch of his family, when I lived in Kandy. Plus, his father taught at St. Aloysius College, Galle—the same Jesuit school at which my dad spent the last years in education, as vice principal.
I also spent some time meandering through the Open University where Lal teaches. It’s a bucolic setting, one of nine campuses, an oasis among high-rises, as you can see.
As for Higher ed, I have lost track of how many institutes and satellite campuses of foreign universities there are, sandwiched between the Pizza Huts, Taco Bells and koththu joints. Speaking of the caffein, even the coffeeshops have creative names : Ibsen’s choice, HeBrews, Cafe Kumbuk, and the Black Cat Cafe which sells vintage books. Thank heavens there’s no Starbucks!
And then there’s this. An escape from the 107 degrees back home. A great place to mull over Devotta’s manuscript.
