Novels - නවකතා

මඩොල් දූව
Translated by Ashley Halpe

Martin Wickramasinghe’s novel Madol Doova has been read, re-read and loved by generations of Sri Lankans in its original Sinhala as well as in Tamil and English translations. During the half a century since it was first published in 1947, over a million copies have been printed. It has been translated into Chinese, Russian, Dutch, Rumanian, Czech Bulgarian and Japanese Ianguages and published in these respective countries.

‘The courage and determination that give Upali and Jinna heroic stature in the eyes of the reader, is a product of their unyielding physical and mental strength. Their intelligence confronts and overcomes the handicap of a deficient education. Upali is a hero who overflows with an extraordinary human vitality.
– Professor I. Scavetch, Bruno University –

#madol duwa

කලියුගය – Kaliyugaya The Age of Kali
Translated by Ranga Wickramasinghe & Aditha Dissanayake

Kaliyugaya is the second Part of Martin Wickramasinghe’s Uprooted trilogy consisting of Gamperaliya, Kaliyugaya and Yuganthaya.

‘The Story in Kali Yuganthaya is built round the disharmony, the loss of sympathy , and the loosening of ties among three generations, the generation in the village – Nanda’s mother, Piyal’s mother, and those like tissa and Anula – who at heart are part of the village; the next generation – Nanda and Piyal – who, born and the village, have broken with it and come to the city; and Finally their children, born in the city and directed away from the village. The novel has a neat formal structure which bespeaks an easy and natural skill in the craft of fiction There are three centres of action in the novel which represent the three centres of values, the three interacting worlds. There is the old village of koggala with its dilapidated ancestral home; the “Maha Gedara”, symbolic of the neglected past; there is the modern home in Mutwal with its well equipped comfort. Its hybrid sophisticated life;and across the sea,which it faces, lies England from where Alan writes,And where Alan goes as though he is driven to seek reality ,the living source from which his parents derived their pale and awkward imitations.’

-Godfrey Gunathilake

ගම්පෙරළිය – Gamperaliya
Translated by Ranga Wickramasinghe & Lakshmi De Silva

At a time when the classical novel familiar to most of us, was being rejected and discarded by some as an anachronism, two events of importance in the field of literature came to my notice. One of these was the opportunity to read the novel ‘The Leopard’ authored by a Sicilian aristocrat, Giuseppe di Lampedusa, a novel in the familiar classical tradition. It was a novel, which received accolades not of Italian, but also of French, England And American critics and readers. The reasons for its universal appeal was, I believe, the great depth and understanding and artistic skill Shown in the presentation of the vicissitudes of the vicissitudes of a feudal class in a modernizing world, the microcosm of a feudal family, the ups and downs in their circumstances, and their joys and sufferings.

The other important event was publication of the Russian language translation of Martin Wickramasinghe’s novel “Gamperaliya.” What struck me was the close kinship of “Gamperaliya” in its theme, subject, high Novelistic qualities and creative power to di Lampedusa’s novel, the first Italian edition of which was published in 1958, fourteen years after the publication of the first Sinhala edition of Martin Wickramasinghe’s “Gamperaliya.”
V.Korchitov In “Problems of Literature”

#gamperaliya