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globalisation gobble up what's unique and common? So when we celebrate our 'common wealth' at a gathering such as that which took place last Monday evening at the British Council where the regional winners of the Commonwealth Writers' Prize were announced and toasted with wine, battered prawns and heated debate, what then do we really honour? To talk of the Commonwealth writer is to open up a Pandora's box of sorts - it's a rather controversial idea and as Boyd Tonkin, who was also one of the judges, put it, "one that has been argued in the past and will continue to be argued in the future." The panel discussion that became the significant part of the event was on, "The role of the Commonwealth writer in an era of globalisation," a focus that was deemed to be packed with words that were "intellectual landmines" save the rather harmless 'of' and 'in'. What took place was not merely a discussion of the wealth of ideas, and it certainly did more than celebrate a common identity or should I say the diversity of identities. Rather the ideas put forward by the panellists Dr. Sanjukta Dasgupta, Boyd Tonkin, Dr. Neloufer de Mel, Senior Lecturer, English Department, University of Colombo and Dr. Rajiva Wijesinha, Professor of Languages, Sabaragamuwa University, questioned the identity of the Commonwealth writer and his role, and more importantly explored the issues and dangers of globalisation within the literary context. The most important concern being that just as much as the writer may capture the spirit of a community, he may also 'sell' a community to a target audience, which is the danger of globalisation. The conclusion of the discussion left more questions than answers; however, the idea that gave the most comfort was that through an exercise such as the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize there is a search for unity, sought through a creatively expressed common medium - the English Language - that, being our common wealth. Established in 1987, the Commonwealth Writer's Prize is sponsored by the Commonwealth Foundation, administered by Booktrust, London and supported by Cumberland Lodge. The prize, set up with the intention to "encourage and reward the upsurge of new Commonwealth fiction and ensure that works of merit reach a wider audience outside their country of origin," is awarded annually for new works of fiction, written by citizens of the Commonwealth. The entries, once submitted, are then sent in consignments to four regional panels of judges: Africa, the Caribbean and Canada, Eurasia and Southeast Asia and the South Pacific. At this point the entries compete at regional level for 'Best Book' and 'Best First Book' categories. Each of these eight regional winners receives an award of 1000 pounds and their books are short listed for the overall Commonwealth Prize for best book (10,000 pounds) and best first book (3000 pounds). This year saw 92 entries from Eurasia - the region includes Bangladesh, Cyprus, Maldives, Malta, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Britain. The regional panel comprised Dr. S.W. Perera, Associate Professor, Department of English, University of Peradeniya who is the current Chairperson of the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Eurasia, Dr. Sanjukta Dasgupta, Associate Professor, Department of English, Calcutta University and Boyd Tonkin, Literary Editor, The Independent. For both Dasgupta and Tonkin sitting in on a panel of judges was an easy transition from their daily tasks. For Tonkin, "the critical judgement of contemporary literature" is part of his job as a literary editor and the act of judging merely formalizes a process that he is used to. The sentiment is the same for Dasgupta who says, "Although I have not formally judged at an event like this before, as a teacher for over two decades, I've been judging every day." Discussing the process of judging they say it is one that blends subjectivity and objectivity. One can never eliminate personal taste in your adjudication, the judges affirm. However, every choice made has to be argued through and this is where a general principle that works as a literary critical standard is developed ensuring an objective stance. Just like in the world of clothes, food and show business, there are trends in literature. Says Tonkin: "As much as there is diversity of subject, the more you read the more you find out that there are fashions in literature." The trend identified in this particular evaluation being that of historical fiction - or as the Professor of English, Dasgupta would have it "Historiographic metafiction" - that being works of fiction set in the recent or distant past. The regional winners this year were both writers from the United Kingdom: Winning the prize for Best Book was Michael Frayn's Spies while Sarah Hall's debut effort Haweswater bagged the prize for the Best First Book. Dr. Walter Perera closed his announcement of the prizes with a comment that seems to encompass the essence of their decision: "It is said that the purpose of literature is to richly reveal the commonplace. “These writers have done that and more - they have also richly revealed the Commonwealth."
Best
Book Prize - Eurasia Region Frayn's narrator, now an elderly translator living abroad, looks back on his Second World War childhood in a quiet suburban area on the fringes of London. It seems that except for one bombsite and a few absent fathers, the global conflict of the early 1940s has left this tranquil corner unscathed... Against the background of a lovingly-evoked summer in suburbia, we see that Stephen's bizarre fantasies will lead him to the discovery of another sort of secret. For the hidden shame and longing that lurk behind the privet hedges belongs to an adult domain of passion, one that Stephen can observe but not understand. Through the "distorted" lens of childhood, we witness a comedy of errors that gradually slides into a tragedy of terrors... This war novel with a difference also turns out to be a disguised tale of migration and displacement, which reaches out beyond these English lawns and lanes to the fury and frenzy of Hitler's Europe. Yet Frayn never loses his sense of the absurd, nor his impeccable lightness of touch, in a novel whose economy is matched by its elegance. The older Stephen, explaining his hapless and fearful younger self, learns that time may offer some perspective, but never really heals. On one level, he still inhabits that foreign country of the past. Frayn's triumph is to make us all his fellow citizens." Best
First Book Prize - Eurasia Region From these bare bones of fact, Hall fashions a lyrical, passionate and tragic account of the conflict between traditional and rural life and the irresistible flood of modernisation and development. Her plot pivots on the troubled love affair between Jack Ligget, the dynamic and idealistic manager of the dam project, and Jane Lightbourn, hill farmer's daughter faced with the imminent extinction of her community's life and landscape... Richly embedded
in the customs, seasonal cycles and the harshly beautiful countryside
of the Lake District, the novel upholds a story of development and
resistance which has been repeated around the world over the subsequent
decades... |
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