- Trustees discuss selection, perspectives, and trends
The literary landscape of Sri Lanka is rich and diverse, encompassing a multitude of voices and narratives. At the heart of recognising and promoting exceptional literary talent in the country stands, The Gratiaen Trust. For three decades, this esteemed institution has played a pivotal role in supporting and celebrating Sri Lankan literature. To gain deeper insights into the selection process employed by The Gratiaen Trust and its vision for the future, we had the privilege of sitting down with Professors Harshana Rambkuwella and Neloufer de Mel, distinguished trustees of the Trust.
In this exclusive interview, Professors Rambukwella and de Mel shed light on the key considerations and principles that underpin the selection of judges for The Gratiaen Trust. They discuss the importance of diversity and inclusivity in the judging panel, emphasising the need for multiple perspectives to ensure a balanced judgement. Additionally, the professors delve into the measures taken to maintain fairness and impartiality, safeguarding the integrity of the selection process.
As the literary landscape evolves, The Gratiaen Trust remains attuned to the changing artistic expressions and emerging trends in submissions. The trustees share their observations on the shifting literary preferences, highlighting the broadening range of genres, themes, and styles embraced by Sri Lankan writers. They emphasise the Trust’s commitment to supporting experimentation and innovation within the literary community, while refraining from imposing a particular literary taste or culture.
Looking towards the future, Professors Rambukwella and de Mel envision an even more vibrant and influential role for The Gratiaen Trust. They discuss the Trust’s plans to nurture and promote literary talent, including the establishment of a Gratiaen Young Writers Club. Their passion for cultivating a rich literary ethos in Sri Lanka is palpable as they outline the Trust’s aspirations to forge deeper partnerships with society and to provide aspiring writers with access to the skills and experiences that can enhance their craft.
The Daily Morning explored the intricacies of the selection process, evolving literary trends, and the future endeavours of The Gratiaen Trust through the lens of these insightful conversations with Professors Harshana Rambuwella and Neloufer de Mel, two distinguished trustees dedicated to fostering and celebrating Sri Lankan literature.
How does The Gratiaen Trust approach the selection process for judges? Could you provide some insights into the criteria or qualities you look for in potential judges?
The Gratiaen Trust has always followed a formula of including three perspectives when appointing the judging panel: an academic, a creative writer/artist and a general informed reader. This is a formula that has worked well over the years and captures a diversity of perspectives, which in turn, we believe, leads to a balanced judgement. We see the three types of readers that make up the panel as providing three broad perspectives and fields of expertise that would be good for the adjudication process.
What role does diversity play in the selection of judges for The Gratiaen Trust? How do you ensure a balanced and inclusive panel?
Beyond the three perspectives described above, we actively look at the backgrounds and experience of each judge and make an assessment as to how they can contribute to a diverse jury. Diversity, in this sense can mean gender, ethnicity, cultural background, class, etc. However, it must be recognised that English language writing in Sri Lanka still remains a rather limited demographic – both in terms of those who write and those who read. Given this demographic limitation there are some practical limits to the level of diversity that can be incorporated. It must also be noted that diversity today is invoked frequently as a kind of politically correct tokenism and we are keen to avoid such a reductive understanding of diversity. Instead we constitute the jury based on our long years of experience being embedded in Sri Lankan literary culture and the intimate knowledge that such experience brings.
Are there any specific steps taken to avoid conflicts of interest among the judges during the selection process? Could you elaborate on the measures in place to maintain fairness and impartiality?
One of the first considerations when appointing a jury is potential conflicts of interests. Therefore, depending on the submissions each year we select a jury without any professional or personal ties to the writers who have submitted their work for consideration. However, as in my response to your previous question, it must be kept in mind that the English literary world in Sri Lanka (and indeed even the Sinhala and Tamil literary worlds) is quite small. This means that if one looks hard enough there might be some tangential connection that can be traced between a particular writer and a jury member. This is unavoidable. However, The Gratiaen Trust appoints a jury which is professional and it has confidence in so it has always avoided any direct cases of conflict of interest.
Over the years, have you noticed any emerging trends or shifts in the types of submissions received by The Gratiaen Trust? If so, what are some of the new themes or styles that have gained prominence?
Yes, we have noticed a clear expansion of the number of entries, age groups and diversity of themes and styles of writing. When it comes to fiction we are seeing an exciting broadening of styles and themes being handled by Sri Lankan writers in English and this is due to the participation of a broader socio-cultural profile in English writing, particularly by younger people. We see much more writing from writers based outside of Colombo and also outside urban centres. We also see many genres such as fantasy, magico-realism, whodunnits and also experimental work that is hybrid. This is true of the poetry, drama and creative non-fiction works we receive as well.
How does The Gratiaen Trust adapt to evolving literary trends and changing artistic expressions? Do you actively encourage experimentation and innovation in the submissions you receive?
We play no active part in determining the kinds of literature that are submitted to The Gratiaen Prize – that is up to the writers themselves and this is the natural evolution of a literary culture that is responsive to larger social and cultural changes in society. For The Gratiaen Trust or any other literary organisation to attempt to mandate or shape the literary taste or culture of a society is beyond its purview and we believe this to be an unnecessary intrusion into the freedom of expression. But yes, we have recently seen the success of texts that do not follow a ‘traditional’ realist narrative style. For example, Shehan Karuntilaka’s Booker Prize winning Seven Moons of Maali Almeida and his previous novel Chinaman (which won the Gratiaen Prize in 2008) are such texts. These works emerged from the writer’s imagination and capture the surreal nature of Sri Lankan society and its recent conflictual history.
Having said that, the Trust does actively support the development of an informed and vibrant literary culture and to this end we organise masterclasses, writing workshops and children’s literary events in different parts of the country. Through these the Trust seeks to cultivate a literary ethos and provide potential writers with access to the skills and experiences that can enhance their craft. However, we do not promote a particular type of literature through these activities. Our literary development activities incorporate writing from a wide variety of genres and styles.
Are there any particular genres or literary forms that have seen a rise in popularity among the submissions? Conversely, are there any genres or forms that seem to be on the decline?
I think I have responded to this question above. Fantasy in particular seems to be a popular genre and novels based on history, for instance, seem to be less popular. Poetry is also quite popular and we see a large number of poetry entries each year.
In your opinion, what distinguishes a winning entry from the rest? What qualities or elements do the judges typically look for when selecting the winner of The Gratiaen Prize?
This is not an easy question to respond to. There is no winning formula. Literary judgement by its very nature is highly subjective and each jury will look at a literary work differently. Many factors can impact such judgments, such as the particular moment a literary work is published and the mood in society at that moment. However, there are a few things that almost all juries will look at. For instance, juries are likely to consider whether the thematic content is compelling, if there is evidence of good craft and evidence of dedication to the literary work in terms of editing and revision. Often submissions fail because while there is an initial spark of inspiration not enough work has gone into crafting this inspiration into a polished literary work.
Looking ahead, how do you envision the future of The Gratiaen Trust and its role in nurturing and promoting literary talent in the years to come?
The Gratiaen Trust has grown significantly over the last few years. This has also been possible because of the financial support we have received from our sponsors including our primary sponsor the John Keells Foundation. As we celebrate 30 years of The Gratiaen Prize, the Trust looks towards the future with increasing confidence to forge even deeper and more enriching partnerships with Sri Lankan society at large and Sri Lankan literary culture more specifically. We have just announced the establishment of a Gratiaen Young Writers Club to help nurture the next generation of writers and we look forward to more and more literary programming to support the development of literature in Sri Lanka.