Diana Pavithri Wijetunga, a young, up-coming poet and writer in Sri Lanka, launched her second book last week. The launching of the book – A Bouquet of Roses was witnessed by family, friends and co-workers who came along to support the release of Diana’s first English book.
Diana is a product of Musaeus College and currently works at Merchant Credit Sri Lanka. Having written a Sinhalese book at the age of 14 and published it in 2001, this time around, Dina wanted to delve into the world of poetry and capitalize on her initial success. Having always had a passion for writing, she never realized it as a talent until her teachers and her family told her to harnesses her writing skills into something more instrumental.
Currently Diana possesses a collection of over 150 poems, however she launched A Bouquet of Roses with only 56 poems as volume one and hopes to attain feedback from this volume and harvest new ideas from this feedback before launching volume two.
The poems contained in this book revolve around gratitude, love, friendship and joy; however Diana did not hesitate to include a poem about abortion. When asked whether the poems initiate from personal experiences she said - “I get most of inspiration from my friend’s experiences and the personal problems they go through as I take on those burdens as my own.”
Malinda Seneviratne, who reviewed the book, critiqued it at the event. He said “Poetry like any other thing has to be crafted. Writing poetry is a process of self exploration. You write for yourself and if it has the ability to enrich others, then that is a positive aspect.” He also commended Diana for having the courage to put out a book at such a young age as her experiences are only based on 22 years of life.
CEO of Merchant Credit Sri Lanka, Hafeez Rajudeen, as the Chief Guest of the event, encouraged Diana to write her next book on nature and the destruction of nature, a topic he was very passionate about. As for the future, Diana has many plans to continue to write, while working.
Poetry.com is a website which Diana frequently submits her poems to. The website is publishing a book and one of Diana’s poems was chosen to be included. Thus she said “My plans for the future are to improve my work for this website as well as to enter my book in the Colombo Book Fair, which is to be held next month.
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| Diana presenting her book to the chief guest |
A Bouquet of Roses originates from one of the poems included in the book. Her decision for naming the book after this particular poem was because “everyone liked this poem and I got a lot of feedback on it. This poem is about how we always send bouquets to people and the symbolism each flower in the bouquet represents,” she said. However the bouquet contains mainly red roses as I have invoked my love into this bouquet,” Diana said.
The book, priced Rs. 200/- is especially dedicated to her family, friends, co-workers and all the people who have helped her and cared for her. We await the next volume in Diana’s collection as it is sure to have a wider sphere of emotions as she advances in her years and garners a wider perspective on life. |
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