Gratiaen prize 2020: Shortlist announced!

The shortlist for the Gratiaen Prize 2020 was announced at an online event on Monday (5). This year out of the eight longlisted writers, five have been short-listed for the next stage of the competition: Ameena Hussain for Chasing Tall Tales and Mystics: Ibn Batuta in Sri Lanka – a creative telling of the journeys of Ibn Batuta; Carmel Miranda for Crosswatch – a medical mystery novel; Jehan Aloysius for Mind Games – a dramatic script; Lal Medawattegedara for Restless Rust – a novel in manuscript form; and Ciara Mandulee Mendis for Red Brick Wall a collection of short stories in manuscript form.

This year the judging panel is chaired by Mahendran Thiruvarangan, a Senior Lecturer in English Literature at the University of Jaffna and an active arts and political commentator. Other members in the panel are well-known creative writer and public personality Ashok Ferrey and Victoria Walker a former diplomat and passionate supporter of arts and culture, currently working as a volunteer for Sri Lanka’s Design for Sustainable Development Foundation.

Detailed bios of the jury members can be found on the Gratiaen Trust website.

The event was live streamed on the Facebook page of the Gratiaen Trust. The Gratiaen Prize 2020 is the second award event to be presented under the Gratiaen Trust’s new partnership with John Keells Foundation – the CSR entity of the John Keells Group – following the Primary Sponsorship Agreement entered between the parties in October 2019. This partnership falls within John Keells Foundation’s focus area of Arts & Culture aimed at nurturing the livelihoods of artists towards safeguarding and promoting Sri Lankan arts and culture under its overall vision of ‘Empowering the Nation for Tomorrow’.

The announcement of the winner of the Gratiaen Prize 2020 will take place on 9th June.