Martin Wickramasinghe

• Name — Martin Wickramasinghe • Birth Name — Lama Hewage Don Martin Wickramasinghe • Born — 29 May 1890 • Birthplace — Koggala, British Ceylon • Died — 23 July 1976 • Place of death — Colombo, Sri Lanka • Occupation — * Journalist • author • Years Active — 1914–1976 • Spouse — Kataluwe Balage Prema de Silva • Children — 6, including Sarath Kusum Wickramasinghe • Website — martinwickramasinghe.info

Born Lama Hewage Don Martin Wickramasinghe, on 29 May 1890, in the town of Koggala (Galle District), as the only son of Lamahewage Don Bastian Wickramasinghe (father) and Magalle Balapitiya Liyanage Thochchohamy (mother). At the age of five Wickramasinghe was taught the Sinhala alphabet, at home and in the village temple, by a monk, Andiris Gurunnanse. He also learned the Devanagari script and could recite by memory long sections of the Hitopadesa. After two years he was taken to a vernacular school where he prospered until 1897 when he was sent to an English school in Galle called Buona Vista. In the two years spent at the school Wickramasinghe became fluent in English as well as Latin. When his father died in 1901, he returned to a vernacular school in Ahangama and subsequently lost interest in schooling. Having left school, at the age of 16 years Wickramasinghe found work as a book-keeper in a shop in Colombo owned by Carolis Silva in 1906. Following year he left the shop to join a commissions agency run by John Silva. In 1910, his mother dies. Following the 1915 Sinhalese-Muslim riots, John Silva's agency was closed and he returned to Koggala. He then became a book-keeper at Cornelis Silva's shop in Batticaloa.

In 1916, Martin Wickramasinghe starts to write to the Sinhala daily Dinamina under the penname Hethu Vaadi (Rationalist) and pens a controversial series called "Plants and Animals". He then joins the editorial staff of Dinamina, owned by the press baron D. R. Wijewardena's Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Limited (ANCL). In 1927, he leaves Dinamina to join Lakmina. In 1931, he returns to ANCL as the editor of Sinhala weekend paper Silumina. In 1932, he was appointed editor of Dinamina, serving until his resignation in 1946.

His literary career began with the novel Leela (1914) and an anthology of essays on literary criticism, Shastriya Lekhana (1919). Shortly thereafter he began a campaign to raise literary standards for the Sinhalese reading public with work such as Sahityodaya Katha (1932), Vichara Lipi (1941), Guttila Geetaya (1943) and Sinhala Sahityaye Nageema (1946) in which he evaluated the traditional literally heritage according to set rules of critical criteria formed by synthesising the best in Indian and western traditions of literary criticism. Through the 1940s Wickramasinghe dabbled with the double role of literary critic and creative writer. Gamperaliya (1944) is widely held as the first Sinhalese novel with a serious intent that compares, in content and technique, with the great novels of modern world literature. The novel depicts the crumbling of traditional village life under the pressure of modernisation. The story of a successful family in a Southern village is used to portray the gradual replacement of traditional economic and social structure of the village by commercial city influence. Wickramasinghe followed Gamperaliya with Yuganthaya (1948) and Kaliyugaya (1957) forming a trilogy. After the decay of the traditional life, the story details the rise of the bourgeoisie, with its urban base and entrepreneurial drive, ending with the formation of the labour movement and socialist theology and rise of hopes for a new social order. The trilogy was made into film by the renowned Sri Lankan director Lester James Peries. With the development of a literary criticism movement in the early-'50s, Wickramasinghe presented the works Sahitya Kalava ('The Art of Literature' 1950) and Kawya Vicharaya ('The Criticism of Poetry' 1954). Wickramasinghe was appointed a member of the Radio Broadcasting Commission in 1953 and in 1954 was appointed to the National Languages Commission, from which he resigned three months later. He was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 1953 Coronation Honours with the ensign awarded by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in person during her Royal Visit to Ceylon in 1954. Wickramasinghe's most heralded work came in 1956 with Viragaya. Due to the significance of its theme and the sophistication of its technique, the novel has come to be hailed as the greatest work of Sinhalese fiction. It follows the spiritual problems of a fragile Sinhalese youth raised in a traditional Buddhist home after being confronted with the spectre of adulthood and the responsibilities that come with it all made more complex with the modernisation of society. First-person narrative is used to put forth the autobiographical story of the anti-hero in impressionistic vignettes rather than in chronological order. It is a seminal work and spawned a spew of imitators, some good on their own right.

Wickramasinghe visited Cuba on the invitation of the Cuban Government in 1968. In 1973, Wickramasinghe wrote a new biography of Buddha titled Bava Taranaya. In it the great teacher's change from royal heir in-waiting to philosopher-mendicant is portrayed as being a result of his sympathy to the poor and the downtrodden of society. That same year, he was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature by Ediriweera Sarachchandra. Wickramasinghe died on 23 July 1976 and his home is now a folk museum.

Wickramasinghe married Kataluwe Balage Prema de Silva on 30 November 1925. They move to Mount-Lavinia, where their first child Susantha Manuwarna died three months after birth. They would have six more children, three sons and three daughters. Their eldest surviving son Sarath Kusum Wickramasinghe, served as Sri Lankan High Commissioner to the United Kingdom from 1995 to 1999. Wickramasinghe built himself a house Samudrasanna Road, Mount-Lavinia in 1939. In 1941, his family home in Koggala was taken over by the British military when RAF Koggala was established during World War II. In 1950, he sold his house in Mount-Lavinia and moved to Thimbirigasyaya to allow his children to attend university. In 1956, he moved to Bandarawela, where he took up residence.

Books translated in to other languages, Bulgarian • Madol Doova (1961) Chinese • A Collection of Short Stories (1961) • Madol Doova (1961) Dutch • Madol Doova (1979) English • Landmarks of Sinhala Literature (1948) • Lay Bare the Roots (Ape Gama) (1958) • Madol Doova (1968) • The Way of the Lotus (Viragaya) (1985) French • Viragaya (1995) Japanese • Madol Doova (2002) Romanian • Madol Doova (1962) Russian • Madol Doova (1954) • A Collection of Short Stories 1 (1958) • A Collection of Short Stories 2 (1970) • Trilogy: Gamperaliya, Kaliyugaya, Yuganthaya (1975) Tamil • Gamperaliya (1964) • Viragaya (1992) • Madol Doova (1993)

Martin Wickramasinghe Trust is an approved by the Government of Sri Lanka as a charitable organization. The Martin Wickramasinghe Trust has been established with the objectives of preservation of manuscripts, first editions of all his books, tape recording and photographs related to his life and work. Martin Wickramasinghe Folk Museum in Koggala also operated by Martin Wickramasinghe Trust Fund.

A library was not established at Koggala, and Wickramasinghe's personal collection of books, draft manuscripts, are stored under the Martin Wickramasinghe Collection in the National Library of Sri Lanka, after these were dontated by the Martin Wickramasinghe Trust.