Biography
Kamala Wijeratne was born in Ulapone, a village near Kandy, Sri Lanka. Eldest of six children, she started her education in a small missionary girls school in Teldeniya, moving onto St. Scholastica’s Girls school Kandy and going onto do her University entrance at Vickramabahu Central College, Gampola.
She entered the University of Ceylon, Peradeniya in 1959 and graduated with English, Sinhala and Economics in 1962. She went on to complete a Post Graduate Diploma in English as a Second Language (ESL 1972) and then a Masters in Arts in Education (M.Ed) from the University of Ceylon, Peradeniya. In 1992 she obtained her second Master in Arts in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) from the University of Edinburgh.
Poetry published to date
The Smell of Araliya (1983)
A house Divided (1985)
The Disinherited (1986)
That One Talent (1987)
The White Saree and Other Poems (1988)
Millenium Poems (2002)
A Prayer to God Upulwan (2008)
The Other Trojan Woman (2014)
My Green Book (2015)
Impressions (2017)
Short stories published to date
Death by Drowning and Other Stories (1999)
Ten Stories (2012)
The Plotted Plant (2014)
Awards
2002 – Joint Winner of the State Literary Award for the Best Collection of Poems
2012 – Winner of the State Literary Award for the Best Anthology of Short Stories
2012 – Godage award for the best collection of short stories
2014 – Winner of the State Literary Award for the Best Anthology of Short Stories
2014 – The Godage award for the Best Collection of Short stories
2019 – Sahithya Ratna lifetime achievements award. The Sahityaratna award is the highest honour given to Sri Lankans who has made an outstanding contribution to Sri Lankan Literature.
You can read Kamala Wijeratne’s poetry here