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Biography

Martin Wickramasinghe was born in Koggala, in the South of Sri Lanka, in 1890. He studied Sinhalese as a young child but later learned English, in which he became fluent. When his father died when he was eleven he returned to the Sinhalese school. He left school aged sixteen and worked as a book-keeper. After his mother’s death, he took up writing, publishing his first novel in his early twenties. He subsequently worked as a journalist and later became a newspaper editor. His best-known novel, ගම්පෙරළිය (The Uprooted) Part 1: (The Village) was published in 1944 and is considered the first serious Sri Lankan novel. He continued to write, published literary criticism, novels and poetry. He travelled extensively, visiting the United Kingdom, India, China, Cuba and the Soviet Union. He died in 1976.

Other links

His official website
Martin Wickramasinghe
Martin Wickramasinghe
Martin Wickramasinghe
Martin Wickramasinghe
Martin Wickramasinghe Folk Museum, Koggala

Bibliography

[Only books translated into/written in English]

1940 අපේ ගම (Lay Bare the Roots)
1944 ගම්පෙරළිය (The Uprooted) Part 1: (The Village)
1947 මඩොල් දූව (Madol Doova)
1950 Sinhalese Literature
1951 The Mysticism of Lawrence
1952 Aspects of Sinhalese Culture
1956 The Buddhist: Jataka Stories and the Russian Novel
1956 විරාගය (The Way of the Lotus Viragaya)
1963 Landmarks of Sinhalese Literature
1964 Buddhism and Culture
1970 Selected Short Stories
1971 Revolution and Evolution
1972 Buddhism and Art
1975 Sinhala Language and Culture