Rajiva Wijesinha |
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Personal life
Rajiva Wijesinha, born on May 16 1954, is a Sri Lankan writer in English, distinguished for his political analysis as well as creative and critical work. He is currently Senior Professor of Languages at the University of Sabaragamuwa, and is President of the Liberal Party of Sri Lanka and a Vice-President of Liberal International.
Schooled in Sri Lanka, he won an Open Exhibition in Classics to University College, Oxford when he was 16. After his first degree, he moved to Corpus Christi College, Oxford as E K Chambers Student (Edmund Kerchever Chambers), and obtained a B Phil in English, followed by a doctorate on the subject of Women and Marriage in the early Victorian novel. The thesis was subsequently published by the University Press of America under the title ‘The Androgynous Trollope’.
He taught briefly at the University of Peradeniya before resigning in protest against the increasing authoritarianism of the government of President J R Jayewardene. He then worked for the British Council in Colombo as its Cultural Affairs Officer before rejoining the University system to initiate English degree programmes for students from backgrounds that had limited English acquisition in school.
In 1982 he supported Dr. Chanaka Amaratunga to set up the Council for Liberal Democracy, and in 1987 became the President of the Liberal Party of Sri Lanka when it was established. Though an academic rather than a politician, he took over as Leader of the Party after Dr Amaratunga’s untimely death in 1996, and was the Presidential candidate of the party in 1999, coming 6th out of 15 candidates, and defeating several former parliamentarians. He was Interim Chairman of the Council of Asian Liberals and Democrats (CALD), and has conducted workshops on Liberalism in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Afghanistan and Indonesia, on behalf of the Friedrich Naumann Stiftung (FNS) the German Liberal Foundation. The FNS will shortly be bringing out a new edition of ‘Liberal Values for South Asia’ which he edited in 1997.
He is the only Sri Lankan writer resident in the country whose works have been translated into a European language. ‘Servi’, the translation of ‘Servants’ which won the Gratiaen Award for 1995, was published by Giovanni Tranchida Editore in Milan in 2002, and this was followed in 2006 by ‘Atti di fede’. This last was a translation of ‘Acts of Faith’, based on the 1983 government sponsored riots against Tamils, and the first part of a trilogy that included ‘Days of Despair’ (1987) and ‘The Limits of Love’ (2005).
Prof Wijesinha initiated the English Writers Cooperative of Sri Lanka while he was at the British Council, which aided and administered the EWC at its inception. He had earlier edited the New Lankan Review, which provided space for Sri Lankan writers in English when the genre was regaining acceptance, and he served on the Editorial Board of the EWC for over a decade. He has edited several collections of poetry and short stories by Sri Lankan writers in English.
Works
FICTION
- Acts of Faith,1985
- Days of Despair,1989
- The Lady Hippopotamus and Other Stories, 1991
- The Limits of Love, 2005
NON-FICTION
Education
Politics
External link
- Liberal Party of Sri Lanka official site
Primary Source
Rajiva Wijesinha, MA, DPhil (Oxon), Senior Professor of Languages, Sabaragamuwa University & President, Liberal Party of Sri Lanka