Fairway Lit Awards draws good response; magic realism and fantasy reality winners of the day
2016’s edition of the Fairway National Literary Awards garnered a massive response from the literary community with Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and Dr. Maithree Wickramasinghe gracing the awards ceremony on Friday, January 13, in Galle. The literary award boasted a record of over 130 submissions. “The Fairway Awards was created as a companion for the FGLF to inspire writers in all three mediums,” said Group CEO Imal Fonseka, explaining Fairway’s belief in the distinct purpose of the arts.
Prizes were awarded to the best written work in English, Sinhala and Tamil with cash prizes of Rs. 500,000 awarded to the winner in each category. Among the twelve shortlisted works in the English category, Theena Kumaragurunathan’s dystopian novel imbued with magic realism, “First Utterance” clinched the first prize. Other nominees in the category included, “The Dalada Chronicles” by Shyam S. DIssanayake and Nanda Pethiyagoda’s “Parallel Lives”.
In the Sinhala medium category, Tennyson Perera’s fantasy-reality novel ‘MahaRavana’ carried away the first prize of the five novels shortlisted which included “Asandhimitta” by Saman Wickramaarachchi, “Ahambakaraka” by Liyanage Amarakeerthi, Eric Illyaparachchi’s “Paradesi” and Sapthambaraye Diga Davasak by Kapila Kumara Kalinga.
Among the two nominees in the Tamil literary category, M. Sivalingam’s “PanjamPilaikkaVantha” was awarded first place while the other nominee “Kalavan Kathikal” by J.Wahabdeen along with the other nominees in the competition received cash prizes of Rs. 100,000.