Vivimarie Vanderpoorten (poet)

Vivimarie Vanderpoorten is best know for her collection of poems titled " Nothing Prepares

You (2007) for which she was awarded the prestigious Gratiaen Prize for writing in English in 2008.

Her poetry has appeared in "Channels", "Nethara", "Options", "Pravada" (now "Polity") and in "Postcolonial Text". It has been read and perfomed at the British Council, Colombo, at Downing College, Cambridge, at the Galle Literary Festival (2007 and 2008), at the German Cultural Centre, Colombo and in the USA recently, at a felicitation event by Human Rights Watch. She was one of three poets whose work was featured in November 2007 at St. Andrews Scots Kirk in Colombo at the performance poetry event "In a Shadow". Recently, her poetry has appeared in Spanish translation in the Mexican journal "Mexico Papeles de la Mancuspia".

Vivimarie Vanderpoorten teaches English language, literature and linguistics at the Open University of Sri Lanka

Mahen Perera

Getting his primary and secondary education at Royal College and his Bachelor's Degree in Fine Arts Painting at La Salle College of Art in Singapore, Mahen Perera tackles art in a whole new different way. He is talented and innovative and his artistic works are utterly unconventional. He started painting at the tender age of seven and used mixed media to express himself.

And while doing bioscience in school, the drawing part of zoology and botany interested him. And finally, at the youthful age of 19, he held his first ever exhibition on plants at Lionel Wendt. So far, Mahen Perera has had 6 exhibitions during his short time in Sri Lanka, including one in the Barefoot Gallery in June. Mahen is currently based in Singapore and visits Sri Lanka from time to time.

*Information from article in Montage by Senaka Abeyratne

Yasmine Gooneratne

Born in Colombo, educated at the Universities of Ceylon and Cambridge, Emeritus Professor Yasmine Gooneratne has taught, researched and published in the felds of English and Postcolonial Literature for 35 years.

Her 22 published books include studies of Jane Austen, AlexanderPope, Leonard Woolf and Ruth Prawer Jhabvala. She is also a poet, and the author of three award-winning novels. In recognition of her contribution to international scholarship and creative writing, She has been awarded the Order of Australia, the Marjorie Barnard Award for Literary Fiction, Macguarie University's first Dlitt degree, the Samvad India Foundation's Raja Rao Award and, most recently, the title of "Sahithya Rathana" (Jewel of Literature) for Lifetime Acheivement by the Government of Sri Lanka.

Her third novel, "The Sweet and Simple Kind", was recently shortlisted for both the Commonwealth Writers Prize and the Dublin IMPAC International Prize, and currently being translated into Hebrew, is scheduled for publication in Britain and Canada next year.

*Information from Writers' Profiles PDF available to be downloaded on assa.net

Anura Rathnavibushana (architect)

Anura Rathnavibushana is a practicing architect in Sri Lanka, where he worked in the earlyyears with Geoffrey Bawa and Ulrik Plessner. He did his architectural studies in Denmark.

Anura Ratnavibhushana followed his undergraduate studies at the IPT Katubedda during 1961 – 63 (now Moratuwa University, Sri Lanka) and postgraduate studies at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Copenhagen, Denmark from 1966 – 68.

He worked very closely with the distinguished Architect Geoffrey Bawa, his mentor, and Ulrik Plesner at ER& B (during 1962 to 1978); at MKA Ltd (1980 to 1997) and was a partner of DG5 at its inception. He is in solo architectural private practice since 1997 working from his small studio office in Colombo.

His work has been published internationally in over twelve books and many journals including CASA VOUGE Aug. 1993 (Italy), which featured his own first house by a lagoon. This much published unique tropical house was included among the 1000 significant buildings in a compendium of WORLD ARCHITECTURE, A Critical Mosaic 19000 – 2000 published by the China Architecture and Building press endorsed by the International Union of Architects.

He is a visiting lecture as well as an examiner at the Schools of Architecture in Sri Lanka. He loves music, reading, contemplation and thoughtful idleness. He lives with his wife, son and extended family in Colombo, Sri Lanka.

*Information from lankaprofessional.lk

Ewan Taylor

Born in South Africa, Ewan studied opera at the University of Cape Town and further lessons at the Guildhall School of music and drama in London. Some of the roles Ewan has performed include: Colline (La Boheme), Sacristan (Tosca), Marullo (Rigoletto), and Guglielmo (Cosi Fan Tutte) in Europe.

Other include Figaro (Le Nozze di Figaro) Hammersmith Lyric London, Masetto (Don Giovanni), Olin Blitch (Susannah), Colline (La Boheme) Royal Albert Hall, Dr Grenvil (La Traviata) and Marquis Villequier (Le Roi Malgre Lui) Grange Park Opera, Der Lautsprecher (Der Kaiser ), Peter Quince( Midsummer Night's Dream), Speaker (Magic Flute) and Cadmus (Semele) Queen ElizabethHall, Leporello (Don Giovanni) Opera Festival Holland, Schmidt and Dumas (Andrea Chénier) Queen Elizabeth Hall, Pistola (Falstaff) New Sussex Opera, and Figaro (Le Nozze di Figaro) Opera Ireland . Ewan has travelled extensively on tours singing in many concerts and oratorios around Europe as well as the Middle East and South East Asia.

Lal Medawattegedara

"Window Cleaner's Soul"

"Can You Hear Me Running?'

"Can You Hear Me Running?' is the latest anthology of short stories by Lal Medawattegedara. Without doubt, the collection, among other things, shows works of a matured writer who has gathered experience in the finer points of the craft of writing. In terms of material that has form the flesh and blood of the anthology, Lal has chosen wider range of themes highlighting class-affiliated prejudices and mentalities of the Sri Lankan middle class, whose sole criteria in measuring status of a person seems to be one's attire and demeanour.

Lal Medawattegedera has published two books: “The Window Cleaner’s Soul" (short-listed for the 2002 Gratiaen Award) & "Can you hear me running?" His work has been featured on: BBC Radio 4 and BBC World Service, Channels (creative writing magazine published by the English Writers' Cooperative-SL), The Khaleej Times, Options (magazine that promotes gender equality), Milkrice (children's short story collection: Perera-Hussein 2008) and "The Times of India." He is currently writing a children's novel.

Nazreen Sansoni

Nazreen Sansoni is the Director of The Barefoot Bookshop and Barefoot Gallery Colombo. 
Being a busy entrepreneur,a mother of five and wife of the famous Dominic Sansoni, Nazreen manages to keep her home and work lives afloat. 

Sansoni was the younger daughter of Shantikumar Philips and Gwen Tissera among two an 
elder sister and a brother. She schooled at Boshop's College until, at theage of nine, her family  moved to Manila when Philips began working for the Asian Development Bank in thPhilippines.

Completing her final year at The International School in Manila, Sansoni secured a place at the  Western Michigan University to follow a degree in psychology and international relations,  subsequently transferring to San Diego to complete her studies. But, her father's untimely death when she was just 20 caused her to abandon her academic career.

She met her husband Dominic in her visits to Sri Lanka. After a friendship that had grown in leaps and bounds in a short time, and, after several years, married him in 1995. She started restructuring the Barefoot Gallery and "started selecting and ordering books for the bookshop and loved it all,”* and the Barefoot Gallery and Cafe has become what it is today “In my life, I have had lots of different adventures – and if life is a journey and is about  experiencing things, then I think I am living it.”*

* Qoutes and information from Savithri Rodrigo's article in LMD - Cyber Edition.

Geoffrey Dobbs

Mr. Geoffrey Dobbs is the Founder of the Galle Literary Festival.

The Galle Literary Festival takes place in and around the World Heritage Site of Galle Fort. It features book reviews, film evenings, literary launches and poetry critiques and a host of other exciting events. International and local authors, dramatists, poets, historians and architects from around the country flocks annually to the coastal town of Galle in Southern Sri Lanka. Thomas Keneally, Germaine Greer, Pico Tyer, Vivimarie Vanderpoorten, Anne Ranasinghe, Romesh Gunesekera, V.V. Ganeshananthan, Ian Rankin, MJ Akbar, Giles Milton, Moses Tsegawa, Michelle Kretser, Michael Morpurgo are only some of the literary names which participated in this event.

It all began when Geoffrey Dobbs organized a book fair at Foyles Bookshop in London for the Sri Lankan Government in 2006 to promote Sri Lankan writers. "On returning to Sri Lanka," says Dobbs, "I decided, on a whim, to start a literary festival in Galle. The purpose of this was also to promote Sri Lankan writings in English by putting them on the same level as international writers."* He also wanted to promtote Galle and the southern province as a very vibrant place to visit.

Geoffrey Dobbs has been living in Galle for 14 years and he has some small hotels and a charity which is dedicated to improvig the lives of people in the Southern province.

* Quotes and information from the interview by Irena Knehtl on Buzzle.com

Ramya Jirasinghe

Ramya Jirasinghe was shortlisted for the Gratiaen Award in 1988 for her collection of poetry "Forgetting Memories".

Her poetry has won the State Youth Award in 1993, the English Writers' Cooperative Prize for Poetry in 1998 and her manuscript of poetry was shortlisted for the Gratiaen Prize of 1998 and of 2008. Jirasinghe has a Master of Arts degree in Comparative Literature from the School of Oriental and African Studies of the University of London. She lives in Colombo with her daughter.

Eshantha Peiris

Eshantha Peiris is a collaborative musician and music director. Having grown up in Colombo, Eshantha owes his musical foundations to his teachers Ramya de Livera Perera and Ananda Dabare, and to his involvement with the St. Joseph’s College choir. A talent-development sponsorship from Prima Ceylon Ltd. allowed him to attend New York University’s Steinhardt School from 2003-2008, where he earned his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Music Performance and Composition, studying with Eduardus Halim, Marc Consoli, Mark Adamo and Jim McNeely.

While at NYU, he also served as assistant conductor of the NYU Orchestra, and as an adjunct instructor in the piano department.

Eshantha is currently a principal conductor of the Symphony Orchestra of Sri Lanka, co-director of the Old Joes Choir, and director of Contempo Choir, in addition to being the keyboardist of the fusion band Thriloka.

Royston Ellis

Royston Ellis was born on 10 February 1941 in Pinner, England, and educated at state schools until he left age 16, determined to be a writer. Two years later, his first book, Jiving to Gyp, a sequence of poems, was published and he performed his poetry on stage and TV to backing by Cliff Richard's original group, The Shadows; by Jimmy Page, later of Led Zepplin; and by John, Paul, George & Stuart who become famous as the Beatles, a spelling Royston suggested to them, instead of Beetles.

In 1960 he caused a nationwide controversy by his remarks on teenage lifestyle in the TV programme Living For Kicks. In 1961 his book The Big Beat Scene was first published. For his literary achievements Royston was awarded the title Duke Gypino y Tintinabulation de Redonda by the king of that Caribbean island.

At 20 Royston left England for a life of travel that took him to Moscow, where he read his poetry on stage with the iconic Russian poet Yevtushenko, and then to the Canary Islands where he acted briefly as an Arab with Cliff Richard in the movie Wonderful Life, and wrote three novels.

In 1980 he settled permanently in Sri Lanka where he now lives in a colonial cottage overlooking the Indian Ocean, and in 2003 was appointed as the Warden (a kind of Honorary Cnsul) of southern Sri Lanka for the British High Commission. The author of over 60 published books (guides, novels, biographies and volumes of poetry) he also writes travel features for inflight, international and Sri Lankan magazines.

Ruwanthi De Chickera

She is a Sri Lankan playwright and director. Her plays have been performed in Colombo, Bangalore, Mumbai, London, Manchester, New Delhi, Manila, Tokyo, Washington and Australia. Her name is Ruwanthie de Chickera.

Born in 1975, Ruwanthie studied in Methodist College, Colombo which was where she first took up to writing drama, working on scripts for inter-house school plays. She had written a couple of poems and short stories before, but it was while scripting drama that her writing became more serious and focused.

Her plays award-winning include Middle of Silence, Two times Two is Two, The Brick Layer . She has produced and/or directed Two times Two is Two and Filling the Blanks among others.

Anoma Wijewardene

Anoma Wijewardene is one of Sri Lanka's most famous and talented artists. Educated at Central Saint Martins College of Art in London, she has held solo exhibitions in Sydney, New Delhi and Colombo. She has exhibited in group shows internationally in London, Kuala Lumpur, Brisbane and Singapore.

The works range from mixed media to digital art and video installation.Anoma was a visiting lecturer at several UK universities, including Central Saint Martins, and has received awards both for her paintings and designs, which were shown in Europe, New York and Tokyo.

Seneka Abeyratne

He is an economist and international consultant by profession with a higher degree from Cornell University. He was awarded the 2006 Gratiaen Prize for his play "3 Star K".Having been a former Chairman and CEO of the National Agribusiness Council and a former Director of Economic Affairs at the Peace Secretariat, he was shortlisted twice for the Gratien Prize and was co-winner in 2006. He writes articles on art, culture and the performing arts for the print media on a regular basis. His hobbies include gardening and photography as well.

Nathasha Rathnayake

Natasha is a singer who is of Sri Lankan and European descent. She began her career as a songstress at age 7, singing in the local church and school choirs.

At around this time, she was spotted by a model scout and she went on to become one of the most famous models of Sri Lanka.Later, she started her professional musical career in 1998 joining a pop band and went on to expan her repertoire to both pop and jazz. Her hit single "Runaway", written and produced by Azlan Sheriffdeen, is being played worldwide, proving how talented she really is.