‘South Asian writers are no longer afraid of own stories’

Much has changed in the subcontinent since Sri Lankan writer Shehan Karunatilaka won the Booker Prize for his second novel, The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida, in 2022. His country witnessed protests by the people and got anew government last year. There have been changes in the neighbourhood too, in Bangladesh and Nepal. The political changes have coincided with the rise of literature in South Asia, including global awards for both writings in English and translations from local languages. Karunatilaka, a regular speaker at literary festivals in India, was at the first Yaanam travel literature festival in Varkala, Kerala (October 17-19), to talk about his literary journey. The writer speaks with Faizal Khan about the increasing international gaze on literature from the subcontinent, the Aragalaya movement in Sri Lanka and his new projects. Edited excerpts:

- @ INTERVIEW: SHEHAN KARUNATILAKA, SRI LANKAN AUTHOR AND BOOKER PRIZE WINNER

What are the major factors that have contributed to the rise of South Asian literature in the past half-a-decade or so?

We certainly have had a golden age of Sri Lankan writing, and for Pakistani, Bangladesh and Indian as well. One reason is there are many diverse stories in South Asia, ranging from absurd to tragic. For my parents’ generation, writing wasn’t a viable career. But when Salman Rushdie won the Booker Prize for Midnight’s Children, that opened doors for many of us. I remember that in the Sixties and Seventies, Sri Lankan writing in English sounded like an Englishman’s. They were all trying to be Englishmen trying to write like Ernest Hemingway or EM Forster. But after Midnight’s Children, realisation hit that we can not only tell our story, but tell it in our own voice too. Then in the Nineties, there was Rohinton Mistry, Arundhati Roy...who inspired us to start writing. Today, there are a lot of writers developing their craft. Now we are not shy to write about ourselves, to use our own voice... There was never a Sri Lankan section in a bookshop when I was growing up. Now there is a whole Sri Lanka section with everything—thrillers, and science fiction, and award winners.

What about the depth of writing in Tamil and Sinhalese in Sri Lanka today?