H.A.I.G. Goonetileke Prize for Translation 2018 on 9 June

• Awarded by the Gratiaen Trust

The H.A.I.G. Goonetileke Prize for Translation, awarded by the Gratiaen Trust, will be announced at an event held on 9 June, Sunday at 4 p.m. at the Lotus Room, BMICH, Colombo. The awarding of the H.A.I.G. Goonetileke Prize for Translation will take place together with the awarding of the Gratiaen Prize 2018 in front of an invited audience. 

The H.A.I.G. Goonetileke Prize was established by the founder of the Gratiaen Trust, Michael Ondaatje to encourage literary translations from Sinhala and Tamil into English. The prize reflects Ondaatje’s vision for the importance of cross-cultural literary enrichment, and for making the best of Sinhala and Tamil language writing available to a wider audience in English. The prize is awarded bi-annually and is worth Rs. 200,000. There were 11 entries for the prize this year including translations from Sinhala and Tamil poetry, and Sinhala novels and short stories.

The judges for the H.A.I. Goonetileke Prize 2018 are Prof. Sumathy Sivamohan (Chair), a well-known creative writer, film maker and professor in English at the Department of English, University of Peradeniya; Prof. Saumya Liyanage, a renowned theatre and film actor and professor at the University of Visual and Performing Arts; Charulatha Thewarathanthri, a past Gratiaen Prize winner and the recipient of the State Literary Award and the Godage National Book award; and Esther Surenthiraraj, a sociolinguist and lecturer at the Department of English, University of Colombo. The H.A.I.G. Goonetileke Prize and Gratiaen Prize awards event is sponsored by the Sarasavi Bookshop Ltd.