The Gratiaen Prize was established by Sri Lankan Canadian author Michael Ondaatje in 1993 with the Booker Prize money he won for his 1992 novel "The English Patient."
Associate Professor of English Dinidu Karunanayake served on the , the flagship literary prize for Anglophone writing in Sri Lanka. Each year, the three-person jury consists of a prominent creative writer, a literary scholar and an informed reader. Karunanayake served as the literary scholar of this year’s panel that was chaired by Sri Lankan American author V.V. Ganeshananthan.
The Gratiaen Prize was established by Sri Lankan Canadian author Michael Ondaatje in 1993 with the Booker Prize money he won for his 1992 novel “The English Patient.” Every year, it is awarded to the best creative writing in English by authors resident in the country. This year marked the 33rd installment of the Prize.
The jury received a record-breaking number of submissions this year, nearly 100. Out of them, 12 were longlisted, and five were shortlisted. Visakesa Chandrasekaram’s novel “The Son and the Lover” was selected the winner at a ceremony held at The Studio, Cinnamon Life in Colombo early this summer. Chandrasekaram is a leading human rights activist and filmmaker in Sri Lanka.
The jury emphasized the significance of writing against the national landscape of Sri Lanka where freedom of expression has frequently been under threat. They also prioritized creative work that remains true to human expression and has not been tainted by artificial intelligence.
“We gravitated toward work driven by absolute purpose—writing that is inherently bold, curious, honest, and innovative,” the Jury noted while announcing the winner. “We sought writing that taught us to see the relationship between local and global anew, that did not overexplain or apologize, and that saw and celebrated Sri Lankan vernacular as well as the global aspects of Sri Lankanness. We thought about how literature centering overlooked parts of the island could interrogate its subject matter strictly on its own terms. We searched for work unafraid of engaging with the political and its relationship to the personal.”
The prestigious Gratiaen Prize is often considered a local writer’s gateway to global readerships. Former winners include the 2022 Booker Prize-winner Shehan Karunatilaka and Carl Muller. The Jury report can be accessed
