Writing with passion and conviction

My intention is to reflect on writing with passion at a time Sri Lanka is producing writing, at least in the Sinhala language, that is worthy of being introduced to the world. When I say this, I am thinking of creative writing. There is no such promise by and large when it comes to academic writing. And it does not seem to me that the idea of promoting our writing, ways of writing, and reaching to the world, are issues seriously addressed by our universities, despite their focus in training young people in language and literatures.

- by Sasanka Perera

Unfortunately, however, the idea of writing, though central to all disciplines in social sciences and humanities, has been under-emphasised to the extent of being made almost invisible in academic, professional and popular discourses today in our country.

It is my strong personal belief that academic writing, produced in our country in the two languages I am familiar with, is of no significant intellectual consequence, globally. That is, they do not impact the thinking in humanities and social sciences in the world. I know this is not a popular position. But I say so with confidence and responsibility stemming from my experience in traversing in the worlds of writing for over three decades. Also, it is commonsense, if one does not have the command of language and, particularly, the ability to write, however good one's other technical skills might be, the likelihood of you finding it difficult to find employment or being underemployment is high.

But this also depends on the cultural and social capital within a person's immediate location and the nature of the market in that location and in different parts of the world one wants to be in, what exact language one must have control over and so on. It is in this specific context that I want to reflect on two kinds of writing that should be important to all disciplines in social sciences and humanities. One is academic writing. The other is creative writing.

But I am not thinking of writing as a mere operational and technical tool of communication and expression. Instead, I am thinking of writing as a matter of passion and a product of conviction. Operational command in writing will allow a person to get by. But one might still remain ordinary, one among thousands of others who have the same abilities in writing, here and globally.