On a literary journey since 2006
Vihanga Perera broke into the writing scene in 2006 with the short story collection The(ir) (Au) topsy which was shortlisted for that year’s Gratiaen Prize. In a literary career spanning over two decades, he has published seven novels, six collections of poetry, and three collections of short fiction. In addition to three State Literary awards (for poetry and fiction), won in 2015, 2023 and 2024, he won the Gratiaen Prize in 2014 for the collection Love and Protest, while being shortlisted six times.
Vihanga’s current novel in manuscript form is called The Warm South.
Vihanga teaches literature and is attached to the Department of English and Linguistics of the University of Sri Jayewardenepura. He has done much research to promote Sri Lankan English Writing within South Asian and Postcolonial frameworks including on survivor narratives of political prisoners of Sri Lanka.
Born in Colombo and brought up in Kandy, Vihanga attended Kingswood College, later reading for degrees at the University of Peradeniya and the Australian National University in Canberra. He holds a PhD in Creative Writing from the ANU.
| An excerpt from his work: | |
In the Arts Faculty where I studied, a passionate speaker – who, at the height of sentiment, shook in whole body as he brandied a crooked forefinger at the Establishment – was unleashing his full ire on the government; in particular, the minister of education. At the foot of the Senate building, amidst fast-gathering clouds, he had seventy-eighty students hypnotized around him. As I belonged to a rival faction, I watched the speech as it gathered momentum from a safe distance. When the clouds finally broke, even as their clothes drenched and water kept dripping down their baby faces, the audience of First and Second Years stood still and kept listening in stunned silence. Dushmantha Abeykoon – for that was his name – continued undeterred. A week later, when Weerawansa announced his breakaway and joined the government to take up a top ministerial position, he had taken with him cubs like Abeykoon for entourage. What kind of speeches did Abeykoon make after then? That, I never got to know though, for a while, I often wondered about it.About a year later, when the General Election was called, Dushmantha Abeykoon contested from the Kaduwela electorate. Once, as I waited for a bus in the Malabe terminus I saw his posters prominently placed. A few months later, I met Abeykoon near the Beira Lake, along Nawam Mawatha. Neatly dressed, booted, with his shirt tucked inside, Abeykoon was leaning against a concrete pillar on the lake-side. When he saw me he raised his head and returned my smile. As we were politically divided on campus we had never spoken to each other, waved a hand, or greeted as friends do. Without that reference frame of student politics, on the edge of Colombo’s great stinky lake-bund, we stared at each other like dogs, newly-castrated. - Machan, I said. So how is life going? Going good, machan. No complains. - I’m on my way to see a friend who works in one of those offices. Abeykoon looked along my finger to the side I pointed, towards the hospital. I’m waiting for my pick up. A van from the ministry – - The ministry? Yeah. I am now one of the minister’s coordinating secretaries. That’s great to hear. And you – I told Abeykoon the name of the paper where I worked. Naturally, Abeykoon seemed to have lost the election, but since Weerawansa had won he wasn’t entirely lost either. It was pleasant and cordial, and a little under four and a half minutes. Walking on, I turned to look behind, and the former student union leader raised a hand and waved goodbye. It was a revealing encounter – probably not too different from what Joyce called The Epiphany in the stories he wrote. How the political divide we maintained with such commitment and such energy unwound and fell on a Nawam Mawatha sidewalk.
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