[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":319},["ShallowReactive",2],{"person-en-rathna-sri-wijesinghe":3},{"id":4,"title":5,"artistId":6,"birthYear":7,"body":8,"born":290,"description":291,"died":292,"era":293,"extension":294,"heroImage":295,"imageCredit":296,"imageLicense":297,"imageSource":298,"meta":299,"navigation":300,"notable":301,"path":302,"roles":303,"seo":306,"sources":307,"stem":317,"translated":300,"url":310,"__hash__":318},"peopleEn\u002Fen\u002Fpeople\u002Frathna-sri-wijesinghe.md","Rathna Sri Wijesinghe",230,1953,{"type":9,"value":10,"toc":282},"minimark",[11,15,18,23,26,29,32,35,39,42,50,94,98,142,165,243,247,250,275],[12,13,14],"p",{},"There is no English Wikipedia article about Rathna Sri Wijesinghe. There is a Sinhala one, a long tribute by the physician Carlo Fonseka, and a Ministry of Education school textbook that teaches his poems to fifteen-year-olds — which is, in its way, the more telling credential. Two generations of Sri Lankan schoolchildren have studied a living lyricist's verse for their O Levels, then gone home and heard the same man's words coming out of the radio in Gunadasa Kapuge's voice.",[12,16,17],{},"He was born on 2 June 1953 in the village of Thellambura, at Nakiyadeniya in the deep south, a few weeks before the great hartal of that year shut the country down. His mother, Manick Hamine, died when he was thirteen months old. His father, Walter Mendis Wijesinghe, died when he was seven. The maternal grandfather he had attached himself to after his mother's death died soon after his father did. Fonseka, writing about him sixty years later, put it plainly: this was a man appointed by circumstance to know loneliness early, and what he did with it was write.",[19,20,22],"h2",{"id":21},"a-schoolboy-who-kept-scribbling","A schoolboy who kept scribbling",[12,24,25],{},"He changed schools repeatedly as a child before settling for a few years at a Sri Sumangala Central College — accounts place it at Panadura and at Hikkaduwa, and the two versions have not been reconciled. It was there, in 1967, at fourteen, that he won his first prize for a poem. A competitive examination then took him to Richmond College in Galle, one of the island's older schools, where well-meaning adults did what well-meaning adults did in the 1960s: they steered a boy whose heart was in the arts into the biological science stream, on the grounds that it paid better.",[12,27,28],{},"He sat the university entrance examination as a science candidate and failed it, having spent the preparation years reading poetry, writing poetry and keeping the company of young men with revolutionary opinions. In 1975 he took a job as an assistant teacher of science and mathematics, which is how he fed himself.",[12,30,31],{},"That same year something else happened. A lyric of his was broadcast on the radio, sung by Gunadasa Kapuge. It was the first of hundreds.",[12,33,34],{},"In 1977 he sat the Advanced Level again, this time in arts subjects, and took three A grades and a B — one of the A's, inevitably, in Sinhala. He went to the University of Peradeniya, took an honours degree in Sinhala, later added a master's from the University of Kelaniya, and emerged in 1983 as a trained teacher. He married Shirani Hemamali Peiris in 1977; she is credited with inspiring a good deal of his best poetry.",[19,36,38],{"id":37},"two-careers-one-pen","Two careers, one pen",[12,40,41],{},"The working life that followed is the ordinary Sri Lankan literary life: a series of state posts held while writing on the side. He ran the Sinhala language unit of the Southern Province Department of Education, lectured at the Amarasuriya Teachers' College in Unawatuna and served as senior assistant secretary in several ministries. He edited newspaper poetry pages, which meant reading and encouraging beginners; he produced radio and television programmes; he wrote newspaper columns, later collected in four volumes.",[12,43,44,45,49],{},"The poetry came out in books. ",[46,47,48],"em",{},"Biya Nowan Ayyandi"," was his first collection — the Sinhala Wikipedia dates it 1975, Fonseka 1979, and the discrepancy is unresolved. In it he set out an argument he has never really abandoned: that the poet's job is to lay social reality bare, harshly and truthfully, but in a form that gives pleasure; that the structure of the society he lives in oppresses the dispossessed; and that ending that oppression is part of the work.",[12,51,52,55,56,59,60,59,63,66,67,70,71,59,74,59,77,59,80,59,83,59,86,89,90,93],{},[46,53,54],{},"Vassane"," (\"in the rainy season\"), published in 1985, is the book most critics reach for. It did not win the State Literary Award for Sinhala poetry that year, and the omission caused a newspaper argument that ran on for a long time. What it did instead was sell out and require a second edition in 1990 — reportedly the first Sinhala poetry collection in living memory to need one, a fact he noted with open delight in the new preface. ",[46,57,58],{},"Suba Udesana",", ",[46,61,62],{},"Sal Gaha Yata",[46,64,65],{},"Tharu Lakuna"," and ",[46,68,69],{},"Madhyama Yamaya"," followed. His collections of song lyrics — ",[46,72,73],{},"Wankagiri Arane",[46,75,76],{},"Sudu Nelum",[46,78,79],{},"Ganga Geethaya",[46,81,82],{},"Ira Batu Tharuwa",[46,84,85],{},"Netha Nilupul",[46,87,88],{},"Alakamanda"," — have taken several State Literary Awards between them, as have his children's books, among them ",[46,91,92],{},"Sindu Kiyana Una Panduara"," (\"the bamboo grove that sings\"). He has also been honoured with a Japanese Bunka award.",[19,95,97],{"id":96},"the-songs","The songs",[12,99,100,101,105,106,109,110,105,113,59,116,105,119,59,122,105,125,128,129,105,132,66,135,105,138,141],{},"Ask any Sri Lankan for a Rathna Sri lyric and you will get a Kapuge song. The two of them worked together for years, and Fonseka's comparison — that Kapuge was to Rathna Sri what Engels was to Marx — is not as extravagant as it sounds, because what they made together was political song that never stopped being song. ",[102,103,104],"strong",{},"බිම්බරක් සෙනඟ"," ",[46,107,108],{},"Bimbarak Senaga"," (\"a great multitude of people\"), ",[102,111,112],{},"නින්ද නැති රැයේ",[46,114,115],{},"Ninda Nathi Raye",[102,117,118],{},"සිංහල සින්දු කියන",[46,120,121],{},"Sinhala Sindu Kiyana",[102,123,124],{},"කල්ලඩි පාලම",[46,126,127],{},"Kalladi Palama"," (\"the Kallady bridge\"), ",[102,130,131],{},"බෝදිලිමා අඬන්නේ",[46,133,134],{},"Bodilima Adanne",[102,136,137],{},"සේද සිහින සුදු",[46,139,140],{},"Seda Sihina Sudu"," are all his words in Kapuge's voice.",[12,143,144,145,105,148,151,152,105,155,66,158,105,161,164],{},"W. D. Amaradeva set and sang several of his lyrics, and the high point of his fame as a songwriter came in the 1980s with ",[102,146,147],{},"සුදු නෙළුම කෝ",[46,149,150],{},"Sudu Neluma Ko"," (\"where is the white lotus?\"); Amaradeva's performance of it is remembered, in Fonseka's account, as having brought tears to the eyes of everyone in Sinhala music. ",[102,153,154],{},"සතර වරම් දෙවි මහරජ",[46,156,157],{},"Sathara Waram Devi Maharaja",[102,159,160],{},"චන්දෝ මා බිලිඳේ",[46,162,163],{},"Chando Ma Bilinde"," came from the same partnership.",[12,166,167,168,105,171,174,175,105,178,66,181,105,184,187,188,105,191,194,195,105,198,66,201,105,204,207,208,105,211,214,215,105,218,221,222,105,225,228,229,105,232,235,236,105,239,242],{},"For Sunil Edirisinghe, with Rohana Weerasinghe writing the melodies, he wrote ",[102,169,170],{},"චන්ද්‍ර මණ්ඩලේ සැතපුණ පුංචි සාවියේ",[46,172,173],{},"Chandra Mandale Sathapuna Punchi Saviye"," (\"little hare asleep on the face of the moon\"), ",[102,176,177],{},"ලෙන්චිනා මගෙ නංගියේ",[46,179,180],{},"Lenchina Mage Nangiye",[102,182,183],{},"මා ඉතින් යන්න යනවා",[46,185,186],{},"Ma Ithin Yanna Yanawa"," (\"I am going now\"). For Karunaratne Divulgane, whose stock in trade is the wry village song, he wrote ",[102,189,190],{},"මිනින්දෝරු කන්තෝරුවේ",[46,192,193],{},"Minindooru Kanthoruwe"," (\"at the surveyor's office\"), ",[102,196,197],{},"අජානීය ස්කූටර්",[46,199,200],{},"Ajaneeya Scooter",[102,202,203],{},"එක්ටැම් මාලිගේ",[46,205,206],{},"Ektam Malige",". Victor Rathnayake sang his ",[102,209,210],{},"පාත ඉඳන් අපි ආවේ",[46,212,213],{},"Paatha Indan Api Awe","; Janaka Wickramasinghe ",[102,216,217],{},"කිරුළ මුතු",[46,219,220],{},"Kirula Muthu","; Pradeepa Dharmadasa ",[102,223,224],{},"සඳගිරි පව්ව",[46,226,227],{},"Sandagiri Pawwa","; Nirosha Virajini ",[102,230,231],{},"පුන්සඳ රෑට ඇවිදින් හේනේ",[46,233,234],{},"Punsanda Rata Awidin Hene","; and Sashika Nisansala, a generation later, ",[102,237,238],{},"තොල් පෙති විතරක්",[46,240,241],{},"Thol Pethi Witharak",". He has also written school anthems, which in Sri Lanka is a genuine literary commission rather than a chore.",[19,244,246],{"id":245},"sekaras-letter","Sekara's letter",[12,248,249],{},"The lineage he claims, and that critics claim for him, runs back to Mahagama Sekera. As a boy he wrote to Sekera; Sekera wrote back, promptly and warmly, and told him to keep writing. Some critics have called him Sekera's literary reincarnation, a description Fonseka qualified sensibly: Rathna Sri has a harder social programme than Sekera did, and is less interested in art for its own sake. In 1994 he co-wrote, with Professor Sucharitha Gamlath, a critical study of Sekera's relationship to social reality — the master examined by the pupil.",[12,251,252,253,256,257,256,260,263,264,256,267,270,271,274],{},"What holds all of it together is the reading. He is steeped in classical Sinhala literature — the ",[46,254,255],{},"Kavsilumina",", the ",[46,258,259],{},"Muvadevdavata",[46,261,262],{},"Sassadavata",", Sri Rahula's ",[46,265,266],{},"Salalihini Sandeshaya",[46,268,269],{},"Kavyasekhara",", Vattave's ",[46,272,273],{},"Guttila Kavya"," — and can quote long passages from memory, so that the allusions in his verse open backwards into six centuries of the language. That is why a critic can argue, as one has, that the lyricist in him may have crowded out the poet, and why the argument matters: in Sinhala, unusually, the song lyric is a literary form with judges.",[12,276,277,278,281],{},"In 2005, when he was barely fifty, a four-hundred-page multi-author study of his life and work appeared under the title ",[46,279,280],{},"Rathna Sri Nava Kaviye Chandrodaya",", edited by Samudra Wetthasinghe. He has gone on writing since.",{"title":283,"searchDepth":284,"depth":284,"links":285},"",2,[286,287,288,289],{"id":21,"depth":284,"text":22},{"id":37,"depth":284,"text":38},{"id":96,"depth":284,"text":97},{"id":245,"depth":284,"text":246},"2 June 1953","A poet who took a science stream, failed his university entrance and then wrote some of the finest Sinhala song lyrics of the century — for Kapuge, for Amaradeva, for Sunil Edirisinghe.",null,"1970s-2020s","md","\u002Fimages\u002Fpeople\u002Frathna-sri-wijesinghe.webp","Divaina","Unverified — fallback source","https:\u002F\u002Fwww.divaina.lk\u002Ffeatures\u002F89659",{},true,false,"\u002Fen\u002Fpeople\u002Frathna-sri-wijesinghe",[304,305],"Lyricist","Poet",{"title":5,"description":291},[308,311,314],{"title":309,"url":310},"රත්න ශ්‍රී විජේසිංහ — සිංහල විකිපීඩියා","https:\u002F\u002Fsi.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002F%E0%B6%BB%E0%B6%AD%E0%B7%8A%E0%B6%B1_%E0%B7%81%E0%B7%8A%E2%80%8D%E0%B6%BB%E0%B7%93_%E0%B7%80%E0%B7%92%E0%B6%A2%E0%B7%9A%E0%B7%83%E0%B7%92%E0%B6%82%E0%B7%84",{"title":312,"url":313},"Celebrating Rathna Sri Wijesinghe: Lyrical Poet — Carlo Fonseka, The Island, 1 June 2013 (archived)","https:\u002F\u002Fweb.archive.org\u002Fweb\u002F20180919094516\u002Fhttp:\u002F\u002Fwww.island.lk\u002Findex.php?page_cat=article-details&page=article-details&code_title=80367",{"title":315,"url":316},"සිංහල සාහිත්‍ය රසාස්වාදය, grades 10–11 — Sri Lanka Ministry of Education textbook (archived)","https:\u002F\u002Fweb.archive.org\u002Fweb\u002F20200110153430\u002Fhttp:\u002F\u002Fwww.edupub.gov.lk\u002FAdministrator\u002FSinhala\u002F10\u002Fsinhala%20rasaswadaya%20G-10-11\u002Fsinhala%20rasaswadaya%20G-10-11.pdf","en\u002Fpeople\u002Frathna-sri-wijesinghe","VtZgYpTqQy4kgOlNwbk7Pym8LfPgrUdfYvRjZuO_MP0",1787999333284]