- Catching up with some of the authors
It’s that time of year – The Gratiaen Trust, one of Sri Lanka’s leading platforms for recognising and promoting creative writing in English by Sri Lankan authors resident in the country – has just announced its longlist for the 2021 Gratiaen Prize.
The Gratiaen Prize, awarded annually since 1993, was instituted (along with the Trust itself) by internationally renowned novelist, poet, and essayist of Sri Lankan origin Michael Ondaatjee, after winning the Booker prize for his novel The English Patient. The Gratien Trust looks to support writers through their creative writing, curating and organising regular workshops for writers and editors, masterclasses, outreach programmes, and panel events on literature, creative writing, and publishing.
This year’s longlist nominees include A Place Called Home by Uvini Atukorala, All of the Oranges by Marianne David, The Unmarriageable Man by Ashok Ferrey, The Birth Lottery by Shehan Karunatilaka, The Lanka Box by Ciara Mandulee Mendis, Talking to the Sky by Rizvina Morseth de Alwis, and Pictures I Couldn’t Take by Vivimarie Vanderpoorten.
The Gratiaen Prize’s longlist is always a mix of writers old and new, with some publishing for the very first time, and others who have several published books to their name and have even gone on to win The Gratiaen Prize in the past. To mark the announcement of this year’s longlist, The Morning Brunch spoke with Marianne David, a journalist and author publishing for the first time in 2022, and Vivimarie Vanderpoorten, who previously won The Gratiaen Prize in 2007 for her first book Nothing Prepares You, both of whom applied for the 2021 Gratiaen Prize with as yet unpublished manuscripts.
An unexpected confidence boost: Marianne David
“It was very unexpected and very much a confidence boost to think about finally publishing. I’ve been writing for decades and softly dismissing it to myself as nonsense,” David said, speaking on her nomination, adding: “Being selected for the long list gives me a lot of joy for two reasons. Firstly, I didn’t expect it and it gives me the confidence I need in my writing, and secondly, it feels fantastic to be part of a list featuring such a stellar lineup of writers, including those I deeply admire.”
David’s application for The Gratiaen Prize was somewhat last minute.
“In December I decided to do more things that scare me and submitting my writing for The Gratiaen was one of the three immediate things I decided on,” she explained. Her book, All of the Oranges, is a collection of poems that examine grief, from the five stages of grief – denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance – to what lies at the root of grief, with David adding that when all is unwrapped, grief is really just love. And what is love, if not a garment covering our nakedness, stitched through with loss, fear, and remorse, intertwined with threads of hope?
A ray of sunshine in a dark time: Vivimarie Vanderpoorten
Vanderpoorten is no stranger to The Gratiaen Prize – her first book of poetry, Nothing Prepares You won the 2007 Gratiaen Prize, and another of her works, Borrowed Dust, was shortlisted again in 2016.
This particular nomination, however, earns a special place in her heart.
She shared: “I’m very honoured to be longlisted with so many other good writers. Many of them have either won or been shortlisted for the prize before. I feel very pleased and validated to have been recognised. In these very dark times, it’s something like a bit of a ray of sunshine, personally.”
Vanderpoorten’s book Pictures I Couldn’t Take is a collection of poetry that is still unpublished.
“This is still very much not shown to anybody,” Vanderpoorten said of Pictures I Couldn’t Take, also adding that she too applied for the 2021 Gratiaen Prize at the last minute.
“I just had the collection with me, and on 31 December, which was the closing date, I suddenly decided to apply and see.”
Pictures I Couldn’t Take is a collection of poems about the gray areas between war and its ending, love and hate, attachment and letting go, with Vanderpoorten saying: “It’s about those moments you wish you could capture and keep and those moments that may seem ordinary, but when remembered, seem momentous and significant. It’s about need and hunger and remembering.”
Absolutely over the moon: Ashok Ferrey
Renowned author Ashok Ferrey, longlisted for his book The Unmarriageable Man, told us that he was “absolutely over the moon” to be nominated and to feature in such a solid longlist of old friends and previous winners and nominees.
Speaking on The Unmarriageable Man, Ferrey said: “It’s a very personal book that took me 20 years to write. It’s about grief, and the hero is a young Sri Lankan in London in the 1980s, when Thatcher was there, and there was so much business and money in that country. It was an unprecedented time and even today, people talk of the Thatcher years, but in between that [the hero of Ferrey’s book is south London’s first Asian builder] he also has to handle the death of his father and the grief that comes with it.”
Despite The Unmarriageable Man being a book that deals very closely with grief, Ferrey shared that it does so with his signature, light-hearted touch. Speaking on who he hopes the book will most resonate with, Ferrey said that he hopes The Unmarriageable Man will offer comfort to those dealing with grief.
He said: “It’s a difficult subject to write about without sounding gloomy and tearful, and the book isn’t gloomy or tearful, but it tells some truths that people need to face up to. In the West, you’re always told you can go for a period of counselling and be fine and happy as a lark afterwards, but in my experience, grief never goes away, all you can hope for is to learn to live with it. That’s the truth as I see it, and people may or may not agree with it, but there is no quick and easy answer to grief. Life isn’t like that.”
What’s in a book?
The Sri Lankan literary field, in English, is a small one; in part, because the community is small, and in part, because of the struggles that come with being an author. To write is to put a part of yourself down in print that anyone can read, critique, and judge.
When asked who she hopes will be inspired most by the story All of the Oranges is trying to capture, David said: “I honestly don’t know how to answer. When you write, you hope people will pick it up. Even submitting All of the Oranges for The Gratiaen Prize was to give me confidence, and I can only hope anyone who picks it up will have something they can identify with.”