Good evening and let me extend to all of you a very warm welcome to our annual event for the award of the Gratiaen Prize, when the winner for 2007 will be announced by the Chairman of the three - person jury -SinhaRaja Tammita - Delgoda. The other two, dare I say it, more charming members of the panel of judges are Maithree Wickremesinghe and Rama Mani. The latter is able to be with us today, sadly, only in spirit.

This is the 15th year of existence of The Gratiaen Trust and I thought it appropriate to look back and reflect on Gratiaen goals set, tasks achieved to-date and the work before us. I have gone over a few addresses given by my predecessors, the late Ian Goonetileke and Godfrey Gunetillake, two eminent men of letters. I have taken the liberty of incorporating some of their insightful comments and observations into my address this evening as I seek to take retrospective stock of the work of The Gratiaen Trust on this its significant 15th anniversary.

As you are aware, the award was generously instituted by Michael Ondaatje with the proceeds of the half-share of the Booker Prize in 1992, which he won with The English Patient. It was his primary intention to advance the cause of creative writing in English by Sri Lankan citizens resident in the country, by setting up the mechanisms of a Legal Trust to promote the objectives in a meaningful manner. Fiction, Poetry, Drama, or imaginative non-fictional work published in the respective calendar year become eligible. Published translations into English of creative work written originally in Tamil or Sinhala were also in competition in the early years until the establishment of the H.A.I. Goonetileke Prize for Translation in 2003.

This year, therefore, as I observed earlier, marks the 15th year of award. A panel of three judges is appointed by the Trust to assess the entries and choose the winner each year. The decision of the majority of the judges is considered to be the decision of all and is final. A Trustee may put in for the award, but is not entitled to the prize money if he or she is selected as the winner. The boodle remains in the bank or, in other words, he or she gets the credit but not the cash. Also, the trustee who becomes eligible in any year does not participate in any of the procedures governing the award, including the choice of judges. To-date only a solitary trustee and a handful of previous judges have tossed their hats into the Gratiaen ring. No winner may enter a work for two years succeeding the year in which the prize was awarded. There has been some mention of incest by a few friends of the Trust in their comments about a review that appeared last week in a Sunday newspaper. While noting with regret the unfortunate timing (or ought I say mistiming?) of the review, I must share with you the happy news that the writer of the volume of poetry was entirely innocent of any complicity in the publication of this unsolicited essay in criticism. One of the shortcomings of history is its incorrigible habit of repeating itself! A similar mention of incest had been made in 1996 and I wish to share with you the then Chairman Ian Goonetileke’s words in response:

I am most pleased to say that the Trust has continued to maintain this excellent convention of giving its panel of judges an absolute free hand in the performance of its duties.

In the beginning, there was provision in the Trust for the prize to be withheld in the absence of an entry in any year being found worthy by the judges as measuring up to the required standards of excellence. Upon reflection and consequent to the Trust’s re-consideration of Michael Ondaatje’s request in this regard, it was decided to do away with this provision. The thinking behind this particular move was that the non-awarding of the prize is contrary to the primary aim of the prize design which is to foster and encourage creative writing. A ‘minor peak must be distinguished from the surrounding plain’ is the philosophy behind this decision. This year the Trust received 56 entries. Over the years the preparation in the contest has expanded rapidly. To illustrate this point, let me offer you some statistics. In 1995 there were only 12 entries. One reason for the wee number was that during the first three years, the competition was restricted to works which were published during the year of award. The number increased sharply when for the 1996 prize the Trust decided to accept unpublished manuscripts as well. But even in that year the total number of entries was 21. Last year it was 55. I think the steady growth we have had in the number of participants over the years, can be taken as some measure of the success the Trust has had in achieving one of its main objectives - that of encouraging and promoting creative writing in English in Sri Lanka.

The Trust has been able as it progressed to streamline some of the procedures to ensure that conditions of eligibility relating to the award such as residence, publication of the award winning work and re-submission of works entered in previous years are strictly observed by contestants. This has helped us to avoid some of the lapses that had been detected in the past. For all of this work our two trustees from Peradeniya who have wide experience in matters of this nature, Nihal Fernando and Walter Perera, have been specially helpful with their advice and recommendations. We have been able to put some order into all the documentation of the Trust that has gathered in the years since its establishment. There is now a number of computerized data set for all the entries, the short-listed works and the awards. We are making headway with work on a website for the Trust with interactive access albeit less swiftly than we’d ideally wish to.

A few words now about the H.A.I. Goonetileke Prize for Translation. As noted earlier, this prize was established in 2003 by Michael Ondaatje in memory of Ian Goonetileke who passed away that year. Ian served as Chairman of the Trust from 1992 - 1995. The number of entries received for the Translation Prize has been few; 3 in 2003, 5 in 2004. An annual Prize was not eliciting the required degree of participation. Reviewing this outcome, the Trust took the view that there might be a better chance of obtaining greater participation if the Prize was awarded at intervals of 2 to 3 years. The Trust, therefore, did not invite entries for the Goonetileke Prize in 2005 and 2007. We will re-examine the position for 2008.

Meantime we have taken steps for the translation into English of two significant Tamil and Sinhala literary texts and appointed Carmen Wickramagamage and Chelva Kanaganayagam as co-directors of this project. This is on account of the great importance Michael Ondaatje and the Trust have assigned to a multi-lingual programme of translation of Tamil and Sinhala creative works. The Trust perceived and perceives the community of creative writers in Sri Lanka writing in the three languages as a closely linked community engaged in the exploration of the same body of human experience -- the experience in the multi-cultural society in which all three lived.

The Trust began its translation programme by producing an anthology of Tamil and Sinhala writing translated into English in a single volume titled Lankan Mosaic. We have also translated the Tamil stories into Sinhala and Sinhala into Tamil. These two volumes are also now published and available in our bookshops. All that we have accomplished to-date through the translation project is thanks mainly to the expertise and dedicated work of Carmen Wickramagamage and M.A. Nuhuman with the guidance and involvement of our trustee Ranjini Obeysekere.

It is our expectation and hope that as this tri-lingual body of writing expands and grows, its capacity to promote harmonious co-existence and understanding and to have a healing effect on our conflict-ridden society would be considerable. Our thanks are also due to the former Chairman of the Trust Godfrey Gunetillake who spearheaded and shepherded the translation programme in its formative years.

And now to matters of immediate moment. I am not unaware of some of the challenges our judges have had to face in their Gratiaen labours. SinhaRaja Tammita-Delgoda disclosed to us a few weeks ago that he still sleeps with a grappling hook under his bed! An entirely understandable situation given the formidability of his two colleagues. Maithree Wickremesinghe in her speech at the shortlist event of 7 April shared with us the criteria employed by the judges in selecting the five shortlisted writers before us today. I have no doubt that SinhaRaja Tammita – Delgoda will tell this gathering of the reasons for selecting the winner from among these five. In appointing our judges for the selection of the winner of the 2007 Gratiaen Prize, we innovated in order to strengthen the disinterested evaluation of entries received. While the customary combination of author, academic and informed reader remained intact, we introduced the informed ‘outsider’- reader by inviting Rama Mani, a non-Sri Lankan to serve on the panel. We are indeed most grateful to Rama for staying the course despite tremendous impediments and personal tribulations. Her ‘foul extrusion’ from Sri Lanka almost as soon as the judging process began made inevitable our reliance on long distance consultation made possible in this day and age by the marvels of modern communication. I shan’t go into the gory details, but our brilliant art historian Chairman of the judges, SinhaRaja’s inexpertise in the science of computers, almost precipitated a disaster! We have overcome and it is my duty and very great pleasure today to place on record the sheer commitment and devotion to Gratiaen duty of our three judges. Thanks very much indeed Maithree, Rama and SinhaRaja.

It is significant that poetry appears to be the preferred medium of all five writers shortlisted for the 2007 Gratiaen Prize. Perhaps they could join Matthew Rohrer, the 2005 International Griffin Poetry Prize shortlisted poet, who has proposed that we establish a People’s Republic of Poetry. Noting that we live in a world made dangerous and shabby by politicians and their pathetic and irresponsible acolytes -- the apparent pillars of our community -- Rohrer says that he feels ‘more allegiance to the abstract nation of poets’ than to anything else. In a much earlier era, Plato, referring to poets as ‘divine madmen’ wanted them banished from his Republic. He wanted only philosopher kings like SinhaRaja around! Discussing this classical disdain for poetry, a fellow undergraduate contemporary, a scholar of the Classics, once told us that ‘when you don’t understand a poem, you call it philosophical. When you don’t understand a philosophy, you call it poetic.’ Some wise man or woman has also observed that ‘Philosophers seek the concrete in the abstract; Poets seek the abstract in the concrete’.

I’d like to give the last word on the subject to one of my favourite poets – Matthew Arnold. In one of his famous essays, The Study of Poetry, Arnold wrote:

So friends I suggest that we are privileged to have these five poets as our finalists this evening.

The present is a time when it is not easy to be an optimist given the miseries surrounding us. The ability to express one's inner feelings, thoughts and sentiments is a precious gift and it offers us a ray of hope in the gloom of our contemporary existence. Out of the quarrels with ourselves, if Yeats is to be believed, is literature created. In fact, it could be argued, it is not just our quarrels but also the turbulence of the times we live in(as much as the times Yeats lived in) that is responsible for the creation of literature. The times we are enduring are filled with violence and dislocation, forced on us not only by ignorant armies clashing by day and night. The moral and verbal violence appear as horrendous and senseless. One is continuously assaulted physically, psychologically and emotionally from all quarters. Despite the trauma, one survives after a fashion and carries on as best as one can.

One may ask, ‘how does literature respond to the legacy of mass violence and political conflict?’ Do poetry, fiction, drama and film help us find words and images to understand natural catastrophe? Can literature narrate mass violence? Does it try to escape violence? Can it be a substitute for violence? Is it a cure? Or is it a combination of all these? Whatever the answers to these questions, we know that literature cannot end conflict and violence. It helps us cope with and endure them. It provides us solace and helps make life less unbearable.

All 56 participants in the 2007 Gratiaen Prize competition have offered us a ray of hope and a sense of optimism that we today are in dire need of. Their invaluable contribution must hence be cherished.

I should like to end by expressing my warmest thanks to my fellow Trustees for their solid support at all times. Ranjini Obeysekere, Walter Perera and Nihal Fernando regularly and very bravely cope with the ever lurking present dangers on a once - beloved and sedate Kandy road to attend the Trust meetings and special thanks are due to them for their bravery. And now to our friend and generous fellow - traveller Michael Ondaatje without whom none of this would have been possible. In expressing our gratitude to him I could do no better than quote my friend and the Chairman of the Jury SinhaRaja Tammita-Delgoda who in his speech at the shortlist event on 7 April observed:

Sentiments with which I associate myself without reserve. Thank you, Michael, and thank you ladies and gentlemen for being with us this evening.