Regi Siriwardena
Early life and education
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Reginald Siriwardena (known as 'Reggie' until the 1980s) was born in the
- My mother pretended not to hear that insult.
- The snobbish little bastards! But how can I blame
- them? That day I was deeply ashamed of my mother.
- Now, whenever I remember, I am ashamed of my shame.
- – Regi Siriwardena, Colonial Cameo
He later went to Ananda College, where he felt rather more at home in an atmosphere that combined his father's Western classical erudition with the home-grown culture of his mother.
He was awarded a scholarship to
Student activism
While at university during the
After the war, he became critical of the LSSP's evolution from its loose pre-war socialist ideology towards a more anti-
Teaching & journalism career
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After graduating he taught English at Ananda College and at Royal College, Colombo. A few years later, the former LSSP member Esmond Wickremesinghe, by then a Cold War conservative, recruited Siriwardena as a journalist on the Ceylon Daily News, part of the Lake House Group of Wickremesinghe's father-in-law, D. R. Wijewardena. Here he worked among fellow left or leftish intellectuals such as Herbert Keuneman, Bonny Fernando and Jeanne Hoban, who had been head-hunted by the shrewd Wickremasinghe.
In the early 1960s, the closeness of Lake House to the right-wing
He worked with Lester James Peries on his ground-breaking Sinhala films, Gamperaliya and Golu Hadawatha. He was one of those who worked for the creation of a National Film Corporation for Sri Lanka, which was established in 1971.
In the mid 1970s, at the Curriculum Development Centre of the Ministry of Eductation, Siriwardena collaborated in the introduction of a controversial new English literature syllabus for the Advanced Level which, to the consternation of the conservatives, included the lyrics of
In the 1970s, Siriwardena became founder-secretary of the Civil Rights Movement of Sri Lanka, a non-governmental organisation for human rights.
In the 1980s, he was sought out by the liberal-left intelligentsia who founded the International Centre for Ethnic Studies (ICES) in Colombo, where he edited its journal.
In 1988, at a seminar organised by the
In 1995 Siriwardena won the Gratiaen Prize, the Sri Lankan literary award for the best writer in English.
In September 2004 he was conferred the Distinguished Service Award for his contribution to English letters at the State Literature Festival, which had to be accepted in absentia.
Works
Poems
- Waiting for the Soldier (1989)
- To the Muse of Insomnia (1990)
- Poems and Selected Translations (1993)
- Octet: Collected Plays (1995)
- The Lost Lenore (1996)
- Among My Souvenirs (1997)
- Working Underground: The LSSP in Wartime (1999)
- The Pure Water of Poetry (1999)
Screenplays
- Gamperaliya (1965) (as Reggie Siriwardena) [2]
- Golu Hadawatha (1969) (as Reggie Siriwardena)
Scholarly work
- MA de Silva & Reggie Siriwardena, Communication Policies in Sri Lanka: a Study, Paris: Unesco, 1977.
- Reggie Siriwardena, K. Indrapala, Sunil Bastian & Sepali Kottegoda, School Text Books and Communal Relations in Sri Lanka, Council for Communal Harmony Through the Media, Colombo. excerpts
- Reggie Siriwardena, Equality and the religious traditions of Asia, New York: St Martin's Press, 1987.
References
- ^ "The Sunday Times News and Comments".
- ^ "All about the blockbuster film "Gamperaliya"". Sarasaviya. 17 July 2019. Retrieved 23 January 2021.
- B. Skanthakumar, Regi Siriwardena
- Radhika Coomaraswamy, Regi Siriwardena: Returning to Ithaca of the Heart
- 'Death of Regi Siriwardena', Asian Tribune, 16 December 2004[dead link]
- DBS Jeyaraj, Regi Siriwardena: A true intellectual of our times
- Ajith Samaranayake, A life in ideas and writing
- 'CNS', Regi Siriwardena: Unfashionable greatness