Galle Literary Festival – the good, the bad, the ugly

I can't give an account of the entire festival for the simple reason that I was not there on all 4.5 days. I spent the entire day at the festival on Friday the 12th of Jan because I was forced to choose one day as there was no accommodation left that was within my budget.

I’ve spent quite a few days wondering how to write this post without sounding peremptory or too negative for it was a mixed experience for me due to various aspects of the discussions that took place and the festival itself. So my personal feelings on Friday the 12th of Jan:

The day started with a discussion on Jane Austen by Yasmine Gooneratne and Marie “Another Lady”. While the discussion was pretty good, I didn’t find it to be particularly stimulating. But then again, I’d woken up at 5am (a definite shock to my late-sleeping self) and driven 3 hours to Galle to arrive 5 minutes before the discussion got underway and so I might have not been in a particularly good mind-frame. On the other hand, it was said during the discussion that the era and the life style depicted in Austen’s work is relevant to us today because that’s where Sri Lanka society is at the moment. However, there are much more relevant aspects that were ignored. For example, Sri Lankan (maybe even canonical) writers such as Thotamunai Sri Rahula Himiyan, Martin Wickremesinghe and Ediriweera Sarachchandra were wholly ignored by the festival. The first wrote in Sinhala true enough, but the Salalihini Sandeshaya was translated to English a couple of years ago and I’d loved to have heard a discussion on how much was gained/ lost in translation. Ditto for Wickremesinghe. And Sarachchandra’s Curfew and Full Moon I thought was beautifully written for that time and also loved the characterizations he created in With the Begging Bowl. And I for one would have loved to hear a commentator/ writer talk of his work rather than a dissection of Jane Austen’s work!! But then again, maybe that’s just me.

Next, “Language and Writing Life” was discussed by Carl Muller and Elmo Jayawardene. Muller, of course, was in a rollicking rant mood (or was being himself, I guess) and really made me wish I’d brought along a tape recorder – he talked of everything – his life, his books, the Gratiaen award, Sri Lankan publisher and anything else that caught his fancy along the way and was hilarious! A few snippets that stuck were he (very rightly, I think) advocated that the Gratiaen award should be judged by an international panel instead of “writers who first published in one year being a member of the panel of judges the next year” and even worse the judges being part of the same clique that some writers (who submitted their books for the award) hung out with, which made one question the neutrality of the judges. He also questioned the logic of not awarding the award posthumously (since the award was in recognition of good writing and not on being alive or not). He asked (would-be writers) why they would want to submit their manuscript for the award because then the book (once published) would sell on account of winning the award rather than solely on it own. All good arguments rants though I wouldn't particularly agree with everything!

Secondly, he ranted on about Sri Lankan publishers (citing Vijitha Yapa and Godage in particular) who now asked that the writer pay for the publishing of the books because this apparently streamlined the actual publishing of the book. This then means that the publisher has today turned into a mere printer. Any “writer” who can afford to pay to print a few thousand copies of his book would be accepted. Therefore the absence of the risk factor for the publisher meant bucket loads of shit ended up on bookshelves to deceive readers. I must say I quite agree with that conclusion after having come across so many really bad books. However, he failed to also say that these same publishers also publish the old-fashioned way where they do take a risk and publish a first time writer because they think the writer is good enough. Therefore, I guess it’s not a general premise.

Muller also mentioned (on an aside of course) that the current President, despite an “impressive chinthanaya” has so far brilliantly managed to do nothing well at all excepting appearing on all forms of media daily. He said he came across a dude who (newly) made strawberry jam, up in the hills of Nuwara Eliya, and proudly stuck a label claiming “home made strawberry jam”. Muller had thought he should stay with the times (and sell more) and so had advised him to instead proclaim on the label “strawberry chintanaya”! :oD

Elmo Jayawardene was not too bad, but was sorely (and quite cheerfully on his part I must admit) overshadowed by Muller. I finished reading Sam’s Story last week and was left with the feeling that it was a bit slapdash and bits struck a false note at time. Frankly I didn’t think it deserved the Gratiaen Prize (2001) and would have done better to have had a good editor go through it a few times. However, I think perhaps Jayewardene somewhat agrees with this for he explained the reason behind writing this story: he’d taken 5 years in writing a novel, The Last Kingdom of Sinhalay (State Literary award 2005) and it turned out to be almost a 1000 pages which, he felt, was way too many for a first time writer. Therefore he set out to write a small simple story first and once it and his name caught on, release the longer novel. Hence, the rushed and false bits I suppose. I’ll have to go read the longer novel, which won the 2005 State Literary award, before I can say if that’s much better!

In “Outside Inside - Sri Lankan Literature & Beyond”, Nuri Vittachi was meant to explore Sri Lankan literature in the outside world. He somehow didn’t quite make it except for reeling off a few statistics about why being an “Asian” writer is good these days seeing as the world was craving writing by “Asian” writers. However, he, being true to his stand-up comedy self, was very entertaining in his anecdotes of being a Sri Lankan abroad and although it never got to the exact point or made much reference to literature as was meant, I loved it just because it was hilarious! :oD

The “First Word: Breaking the Ice” was a discussion with first time writers who made it big in Sri Lanka – Ashok Ferry, David Blacker and Manuka Wijesinghe. The discussion was moderated by Ameena Hussein who said she wanted to get a smooth discussion going between the three, but didn’t really succeed. Therefore it turned out to be a Q & A of the writers, and it wasn’t too bad altogether. David Blacker talked of how he stumbled into writing unexpectedly when he thought he’ll “give it a go and see” and Ferry talked of how he would never give up his day job (designing houses?) even if his writing paid well enough someday. Again, I felt both Blacker and Ferry were somewhat overshadowed by Manuka who stole the show with a discussion on the discipline that was required of her to research and write the book (which took 5 years) and ended laughingly throwing “you can’t keep a good woman down I guess” at the audience and also got a round of applause for saying “we have to take care of this country”, in whatever way, because after all, “what else do we have to call our own but this land?” At the final stages, Blacker was asked why he joined the Army. He said there were many reasons of which one was to see what it would be like to see what the violence was like (or something along this strain) and a gentleman behind me exclaimed (quite loudly and I’m sure with a sniff!) “that’s not a good reason!!”. While I agree that it wasn’t a good reason, it was another’s decision and I guess kudos to Blacker for his honesty!

Something that came as a huge shock to me in this panel was the answer to one question Hussein chose to ask. The question was put to all three writers – if you were stranded on a deserted island, what 3 books would you want to have with you? Seeing as this was a literary festival and there were three writers from whom to ask the question, a more normal question might have been “what 3 authors/ books do you think influenced/ guided/ inspired you or you hold right up there”, but then again I guess it wouldn’t have made much of a difference because all three writers gave the same answer “NOTHING comes to mind right now”. Had I not been sitting down, I’d have surely fainted I think. Is there not one single book that they’ve read that comes to mind?? Not one?? Not even something non-fiction? The only conclusion I can come to is that perhaps they’re not big readers, which I guess is perfectly fair and it was my bad to have generally assumed most writers read vociferously! Blacker, however, got smart a few minutes later and quipped he’d choose 3 books he’d never read – no matter what they were.

Finally, in the best event for the day, in “Telling the Tale: Fact or Fiction” Kiran Desai, Romesh Gunasekera and Suketu Mehta talked of the existence of a line between fact and fiction. Mehta had a lot to say on the two genres while Desai held that fact gave way (and formed a base) for fiction and therefore to an extent fiction was a blurring of fact. Gunasekera didn’t quite agree with Desai and said that in the few times he’d based his fiction on fact, he’d ended up taking out and substituting so much detail that the “facts” didn’t exist at all in the final product.

Desai also went on to talk of how hard the 8 years it took to write the novel. She quite honestly claimed that the novel was “a mess” and consisted of only bits of prose and writing that made no sense when taken together, but finally the need for a final product had made her sit down and put everything together to form a coherent story. At the time I found this claim amazing since I didn’t think that was possible. Since then, I’ve been reading the novel, The Inheritance of Loss, and it (so far) follows so smoothly that the amazement has grown ten-fold! This was the best event of the day not only because the writers didn't quite agree with each other but managed to make so much sense, but more so because the discussion was taken over so completely by the three writers and flowed so smoothly that the moderator didn’t get a chance to utter a word! I absolutely LOVED it!! :o)

One thing I didn’t really like that stood out like a sore thumb (at least for me) was the almost non-interaction of the attendees with each other. In other festivals I’ve been to (outside Sri Lanka though), the people who attend talk freely with perfect strangers because they were brought together by a common passion. Here, there was a tight circle of “writers, publishers and other such important people” who talked with people who approached them, rather than mingling or venturing out too much to talk to others themselves. However, I've been told that this was not so on the weekend and there was quite a bit of mingling and fun..Secondly, the “international school kids” hung out together too in a tight clique, but I think this might also have had something to do with their age judging from the questions that were put to the writers by them during the discussions!

However, that is not to say everyone there was cliquey (or shy) because I met a few people who were quite happy to talk randomly and turned out to be pretty well-read – the sad thing was that the majority of such people were non-Sri Lankan. There were, however, a few people from Colombo Uni and a few who studied outside Sri Lanka (holidaying in Sri Lanka) who were quite open and comfortable talking to absolute strangers about what was said at the discussions and most seemed to know what they were talking about so not all was lost!

Two things that disturbed me about this festival was firstly, the (extreme, irrational) reactions of idiots who pretended to know better and wiser. For example, the Mawbima newspaper carried an article on Sunday the 14th (page 38), the essence of which was the fact that the festival, being a celebration of English Sri Lankan writing, was a useless exercise and everyone involved need be ashamed. The article failed completely in giving any reasonable reason for its rant except (in one line) that some canonical Sri Lankan authors were ignored by the festival (as I pointed out above). If one were to read between the lines, the article simply says Sri Lankan English literature is not a valid form of literature simply because it’s not Sinhala literature (which can be understood by the majority) and all who subscribe to such literature are worthless and exploitative. The huge double standard within this view however is that it claims it’s unfortunate that among these worthless, exploitative beings who were a part of this festival, there was also (to paraphrase the writer) Booker Prize winner Kiran Desai, internationally famous photographer Dominic Sansoni and popular English writer Romesh Gunasekera. Therefore it seems these three are far above the rest. If the writer had stopped to think for two seconds he’d have realized that Kiran Desai is an Indian who writes in English and Gunasekera a Sri Lankan who writes in English. The only difference I see between these three and some of the other writers present at the festival is that they’ve won international prizes. Therefore if one were to win an international prize, then it really does not matter if they “unpatriotically” chose to write in English? Then isn’t the writer’s argument defeated by the simple fact that “international” standards (measured usually by “exploitative foreigners”) are the acceptable standard we must all endeavour to achieve? So the writer, being the “patriot” he pretends to be, subscribes to the argument that international standards are better than local Sri Lankan ones?? Perhaps he’d be better off giving up penning groundless contradictory arguments and using that time to have his head checked. Ditto for Prof Sucharitha Gamage who claims he’s glad he was not invited to this festival because he’d rather not waste listening to the nonsense spouted by the Sri Lankan English writers (and the sour grapes continue to hang above in all their fat juicy glory) and goes on to proclaim that all he knows is that literature in Sri Lanka is dead. Seeing as he’s a literature professor, perhaps he can keep the above Mawbima article writer company at the doctor’s office. *end of my rant!* :oD

Secondly, an article which was forwarded to me today questioned the “appropriate[ness] for a registered charity dedicated to Sri Lanka’s December 2004 tsunami relief to sponsor a foreign literary festival” the details of which kind of soured things. This post is too long as it is, so I’ll leave you to read that article for more on that particular aspect!

All in all though, from the one day’s experience I had at the festival, I’d say if there was another one, and the line up was good, I’d definitely go again. But this time I’ll know better than to expect too much because I guess first steps are never too easy to take perfectly and at the end of the day, it seemed a superb effort! :o)

The bad news was that I wiped out most of my savings buying books (although I couldn’t get my hands on Muller’s book of essays) and had to turn down a (very good) invite to party on Sat seeing as I was completely, utterly broke! :o( The good news though was that I got to instead curl up in bed with Desai’s “The Inheritance of Loss” with a sickeningly full mug of hot chocolate..which reminds me, does anyone know where I can get those itty bitty marshmellows?? :o)