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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 June 2019
This article presents methodologies towards a multilingual literary history of Sri Lanka in the twentieth century by examining multilingual encounters or cultures through places, people, and institutions. Massey's concept of plural space underpins the study and gives rise to various strategies to build a multilingual literary history. The guiding research questions are: How do we construct multilingual literary histories in the context of language-based conflict? What can conflict environments teach us about approaches to multilingual literary histories and spheres? In addition to discovering future directions for intra-national comparative literary studies and documenting multilingual cultures and sites, I also focus on the changing geography of multilingualism in the twentieth century. As ideological separation of language spheres turned to real-world segregation through a series of policy shifts and institutional changes, we see that the pursuit of multilingual research takes us from organic, or naturally occurring, sites of multilingualism to orchestrated, or purposefully created, sites. Orchestrated sites work to counterbalance the decreasing opportunity for organic multilingual encounters in the context of ethnolinguistic conflict.
I am thankful to the United Kingdom Foreign and Commonwealth Office and participating institutions for supporting this study in the form of a Chevening Scholarship, administered in 2015–16. The opinions expressed here, however, are my own and do not reflect the views of The Chevening Secretariat or the UK-FCO.
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21 Loc. cit.
22 Ibid., p. 153.
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32 See, for example, Karthigesu Sivathambi, ‘Is It Sri Lankan Literature in Tamil or Tamil Literature in Sri Lanka?’, July 2003, http://www.tamilcanadian.com/article/1907 (accessed 29 May 2019).
33 For more on Dharmapala, Sinhala-Buddhist nationalism, and the Bengal connection, see Dharmadāsa, Language, Religion, and Ethnic Assertiveness, ‘The Nineteenth Century Buddhist Revival’, and ‘Revivalism, Social Mobilization, and the Sinhala Language’.
34 Ibid., p. 146.
35 Kamal Wickremasinghe, ‘Rabindranath Tagore: Portrait of a Torn Soul’, 10 May 2016, http://www.island.lk/index.php?page_cat=article-details&page=article-details&code_title=144998 (accessed 29 May 2019).
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60 Halpe, ‘Ludowyk, English, and the Sri Lankan University’.
61 Ibid.; Rajan Philips, ‘Jaffna's Literary Soul: A Tribute to A.J. Canagaratne’, 2006, http://www.sundaytimes.lk/061029/Plus/pls21.html (accessed 29 May 2019).
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64 For details on the policy changes see Jayasuriya, Education in Ceylon, and for an overview of swabasha movement, see deVotta, ‘From Linguistic Parity to Sinhala Only’.
65 In Sri Lanka, the category ‘Muslim’ is seen as an ethnoreligious identity apart from Sinhalese and Tamil. For this article, I have reproduced this terminology of ‘Sinhala, Tamil, and Muslim’ as the three major communities of Sri Lanka to follow conventions of discourse about communal relations in Sri Lanka.
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72 D. B. S. Jeyaraj, ‘How and Why the LTTE Evicted Muslims from the Northern Province 25 Years Ago in “Black October 1990”’, Dbsjeyaraj.com, 10 November 2015, http://dbsjeyaraj.com/dbsj/archives/43660 (accessed 29 May 2019).
73 Information on the Progressive Writers Association and Ceylon Progressive Writers Association from personal communications with Neervai Ponnaiyan, 11 July 2016, Colombo.
74 Information on Vibhavi Centre and the literary culture of the 1990s from personal communications in Colombo with Sunil Wijesiriwardena, 24 July 2016, and Neervai Ponnaiyan, 11 July 2016.
75 Personal communication from Jayasundera to Sunil Wijesiriwardena, conveyed to me on 24 July 2016.
76 Information on film culture is from D. B. S. Jeyaraj, ‘Jaffna Film Festival and Indigenous Tamil Cinema in Sri Lanka before “1983 Black July”’, Dbsjeyaraj.com, 16 October 2015, http://dbsjeyaraj.com/dbsj/archives/43235 (accessed 29 May 2019); Athanas Jesurasa, ‘Indigenous Tamil Cinema in Sri Lanka before “Black July”’, 25 September 2015, http://www.ft.lk/article/475611/Indigenous-Tamil-cinema-in-Sri-Lanka-before--Black-July- (accessed 29 May 2019) and personal communications with Dharmasiri Bandaranaike, 26 July 2016.
77 Sethu Das, ‘“The Land Minds of Sri Lanka”, March 2010, https://www.sethudas.info/ravindraranasinha (accessed 7 June 2019).
78 Information on this from Dharmasiri Bandaranaike, ‘A National and International Appeal to Artists, Human Rights Organizations and Mass Organizations: Defend the Performing Rights of Sri Lankan Artists from Fascist Attacks’, Trikone Cultural Foundation, http://trikonecf.net/human_rights.php (accessed 11 August 2016); Champika Ranwaka, ‘Pongu Tamil Thugs Attacked Patriotic Sinhalese in Colombo’, http://www.lankaweb.com/news/items03/041103-5.html (accessed 7 June 2016); TamilNet, ‘Mobs Attack Sinhala-Tamil Cultural Festival in Colombo’, 29 October 2003, https://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=13&artid=10278 (accessed 29 May 2019) and personal communications with Dharmasiri Bandaranaike, 26 July 2013, Colombo.
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80 Deepal Warnakulasuriya, ‘Attack on Sinhala-Tamil Arts Fest’, 2 November 2003, http://archives.sundayobserver.lk/2003/11/02/new14.html (accessed 7 June 2019).
81 See Ranwaka, ‘Pongu Tamil Thugs Attacked Patriotic Sinhalese in Colombo’.
82 S. Vithiananthan and Sachi Sri Kantha, ‘Tamil Studies in Ceylon; a Review Essay of 1968’, http://www.sangam.org/2009/05/Tamil_Studies.php?uid=3462 (accessed 31 July 2016).
83 Nuhman, ‘Ethnic Conflict and Literary Perception’.
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85 TamilNet, ‘“Sri Lanka” Poetry: Rajapaksa Man Edits, India Publishes, SL-Canada Mission Launches’, 29 May 2013, https://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=13&artid=36359 (accessed 7 June 2019).