The shortlist of the 26th Gratiaen Prize contestants was announced recently at the British Council Library.
Chats with the Dead - Shehan Karunatilake (manuscript, novel), Youthful Escapades – Upali Mahaliyana (manuscript, novel), The One Who Loves You So – Arun Welandawe-Prematilleke (playscript) and They Failed to Kill Her – Zeneefa Zaneer (manuscript, novel) selected out of 42 qualified entries will contest for the grand prize.
This year the Gratiaen Trust which administers the competition is also awarding the H.A.I. Goonetileke Prize for Translations. The winner of The Gratiaen Prize 2018 and the H.A.I. Goonetileke Prize for Translations 2018-19 will be announced at a final awards ceremony.
The prizes are being presented under the Gratiaen Trust’s partnership with Sarasavi Bookshop (Pvt) Ltd, who will sponsor the main prize awarding event to be held on June 9 at the BMICH.
The prize is awarded each year to the best submitted creative work in English, written by a Sri Lankan writer resident in Sri Lanka. Both published works and unpublished manuscripts are accepted as submissions.
The Gratiaen Trust was founded in 1993 by Michael Ondaatje, the internationally renowned novelist, poet and essayist of Sri Lankan origin. It was funded with the prize money Ondaatje obtained when his novel The English Patient co-won the prestigious Booker Prize in 1992 and was named after Ondaatje’s maternal family.