Notably, he derived inspirations for his writings from English and French novels. ![]() In novels such as Radala Piliruva, Silva severely attacked certain sections of society. Vijayaba Kollaya and Sumetra are major Sinhala historical novels. Romance has been a prominent theme in W.A de Silva’s literary productions. ![]() The rich corpus of novels which were extremely popular of his time, included Siriyalata (1909), Lakshmi (1922), Higanakolla (1923), Kala Handa (1936), Radala Piliruva( 1936) and Pasal Taruniya (1939). A de Silva (1892-1957) was one of the major Sri Lankan writers who wrote over 20 books since 1909. Most of such fictions commenced with either a gist of the content presented in the first chapter or an epigraph and to offer poems at the beginning, in the middle and at the end of the fiction”. This, in turn, resulted in the surge of fiction. ” Sannasgala observes, “As these books were pleasurable reads, readers began to enjoy them. The Sinhalese equivalent of English word ‘novel’, Navakatava, would have been used as a common term to describe fiction of such nature. He also used the word ‘novel’ in the book. He describes it as a Rasavat Katandaraya (exhilarative read). According to Punchi Bandara Sannasgala who compiled the voluminous book entitled History of Sinhala literature, “Martin Wickremasinghe who read early Sinhala fiction began his literary career with Leela. The fictions by Alexander Welivita who subsequently became the Editor -in -Chief of the Sinhalese daily Dinamina and who wrote fiction such as Horunge Guhava (1912), Adara Hasuna ha Kavata Kata (1915) took the shape of Amutu Kata. W.A Silva who was heavily influenced by Sanskrit literature and diction, had also used the term Nava Prabanda for his literary productions. M.C.S Perera ( a prominent 20th century writer of Nava Prabanda Kata) who wrote fictions such as Mage Pembari (1906), Lanka Abhirahas (1907) and Sirimadura (1908) identified his literary works as Samaya Kata (Stories of the time). For the first time, Piyadasa Sirisena used such terms as Pabanda and Nava Prabanda Kata for his literary productions. In the next stage of the evolution of the Sinhala novel, the fiction was given the term Pabada ( Prabanda) and Nava Prabanda Kata (new fiction). Literary works by Bentara Elbert Silva (1894) were known as Amutu Kata. ![]() Evolution of Sinhala novel In examining the evolution of the Sinhala novel in the 19th century, the very first series of fiction which can be considered as the rudimentary form of the Sinhala novel was known as Amutu Kata. ![]() Although it is not possible within a limited scope to examine a vast corpus of literary works by pioneers in Sinhala literature it is quite possible to introduce them to contemporary English readers in a concise manner. A de Silva, who not only read English literature and world literature in English translations available at the time, but also read and was influenced by French literature. One of the important factors that led to the cross cultural fertilisation and the enrichment of contemporary Sinhala idiom is that most of the pre and post independent Sri Lankan writers were either bilinguals (Sinhala and English) and multilingual, particularly in the case of W. In this essay, I would like, briefly, to examine some of the pioneer writers in Sinhala literature and their seminal contribution to the growth of Sinhala as a literary language.
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