Recent awardee of the Premchand Fellowship 2017 by the Sahithya Akademi of India, Jaffna-resident writer in Tamil and English Ayathurai Santhan shares a few ideas on literature, reconciliation and the way forward as a single country. He states that reports by some Southern media claiming terrorism is on a come back cannot be true and that literature has a role to play in building bridges between communities.
Excerpts from Santhan’s interview with our team:
Ayathurai Santhan‘s name has recently caught the limelight with the awarding of the Premchand Fellowship for 2017 by the Literary Council of India, the Sahithya Akademi. Can we know more of this rare honour?
The Premchand Fellowship is not new to Sri Lankan writers. This was awarded to Sumathy Sivamohan, Yasmine Gooneratne and Jean Arasanayagam in the past. Indian Cultural Centre, Colombo, invited applications during last December and I forwarded my lit-based bio and some sample reviews. It was a pleasant surprise to receive the news of offer in July.
I am expected to be there for one to three months and to give readings from my works in different cities in India. I look forward to reading in English and in Tamil.
Reading in both English and Tamil should be exciting as you began your career as a writer in Tamil before branching off into English. As a Jaffna-based writer in a post-war environment what prospects do you see for other writers to follow your path?
As we all know literature is something which spans all divides – especially the artificial divides as in our case – and help people to understand each other better. My main aim still remains to reach the Southern readers and that was the reason I started trying my hand in English. It should be welcomed if some young writers could follow this path.
But, a culture and a disrupted tradition takes time to recuperate. What hopes and aspirations do you have for the Northern literary culture to revive itself amidst slow movement towards post-war normality?
There was a continuous and healthy literary culture in the North until the climax of the war. And, after the end of it, though things have already started recuperating, for any mass literary cultural revival as you say, we have to overcome several distracting factors other than the post-war effects. The influence of the social media and the Tamil cinema are very powerful among the younger generation, resulting in a decline in the reading habit, a pre-requisite for any literary awareness. Unfortunately, a healthy and realistic socio-political consciousness, the basic driving force, is also lacking up to now.
When you say ‘socio-political consciousness’, you have on several occasions highlighted your writing to have a close bond with biography and actual history. What are the immediate writing projects that lie on your work table? How do they connect with your earlier work?
I was born just a year prior to the Independence and was destined to witness, and in most of the times get affected in various ways, by the happenings. In this way I see that I have got a lot to share in writing. Having spent a good part of my life with studies, job, political interests, loves, family responsibilities and the worst – with the war situation in the North – I now try to put whatever I could into writing. You know, I am still struggling to shape my third novel, which deals with a period after those of the two mentioned in my earlier work, The Whirlwind and Rails Run Parallel.
But, in the mean time, I am pleased to finalise in translation a small collection of my stories from the 1970s. The period of the novella in this collection precedes Whirlwind and Rails Run Parallel.
In recent months we see some media (not entirely without vested interests) in the south trying to agitate society with a scare of a resurgence of ‘terrorism’ in the North. As a writer who moves with the community, do you have an assessment of such ‘doubts’ they raise?
These doubts are baseless but dangerous and, to some extent, expectable. Whatever it may be, these are to be cleared out of the minds of the people of the South. There is no such ‘resurgence’ to my knowledge and there cannot be any, either. But, the South should realize the need for an early political solution acceptable for all, without which the peace and progress of our country will have to suffer a lot. When I say ‘Peace’ I don’t mean the external one, but that of the conscience of the whole nation.
In recent months we see increasing interest among progressives from both the south and the north to encourage translations of work from one language to another. What kind of resource base and interest does the North have for such projects? How do you think such programmes should build up? Do you have any suggestions whatsoever?
Such attempts were there in the past as well, especially in the 60s and 70s of the last century. The ‘progressive’ writers, most of them were ideologically leftists from all over the country who took great interests in connecting the communities. The Pragathiseeli Lekhaka Sangamaya, Mutpoakku Ezuththaalar Sangam and Janatha Lekhaka Peramuna were very active those days and a considerable number of works were translated from both sides. Still there is a big interest in the North for such attempts.
Yes, I have a suggestion, or rather ambition, we must have a Writers’ Organization in Sri Lanka, incorporating writers from all three languages, the main aim of which should be to foster understanding through literature. Understandably, there will be an important need and place for translations in the functioning of such an organization.
North-South ‘reconciliation’ is, for some, a ‘career’; for others, it is a ‘cynical mirage’. A third party look at it as a mere ‘election promise’. A fourth group would not even make an effort or give a thought. You are someone who has seen, heard and borne a lot in one life time. Do you really feel that such ‘reconciliation’ is achievable? Outline two things you would recommend as imperative in any such reconciliation programme.
That is no other way out, but we have to MAKE IT achievable. I always believe that the division is like a house division in schools and nothing more. I feel the ‘reconciliation’ is very feasible. Only thing, the people should simply realize the truth and the reality that we are ONE NATION, with TWO LANGUAGES. The Sinhalese and Tamils should not forget that they share not only the same land, but the same culture and same history, and most importantly, the same future as well!
Sri Lankan English WRITERS REVIEW 
Leave a comment