The lady with the magic pen

by Nan (S. Godage & Brothers Pvt. Ltd. Colombo 2022)
277pp Rs 1250
Reviewed by Jayantha Somasundaram

This book is a collection of articles authored by Nan and published over the years in a column that appears weekly in The Sunday Island. Nan’s column had its genesis at a Colombo function of the Girls High School Kandy OGA four decades ago, when the then editor of The Sunday Island Gamini Weerakoon invited her to write a regular column in his weekly newspaper.

She had the credentials: a teacher, a librarian, a free lance writer, a voracious reader, a gregarious personality and most important a lifelong student of current events and personalities. As well as the gift of a thinker with an open yet critical mind and a writing style that is engaging, provocative and courageous.As Nan herself explains, she chose the title ‘People & Events’ for her column because it was a general licence – she could write about most anything and it would fall comfortably under that rubric.

Since then Nan has become something of an icon and a celebrity in the world of English language journalism. Her column which appears each week in The Sunday Island provides either a critique or a commentary on a range of people, places and events.

Nan has now had the good sense to make life easier for her readers by publishing a selection of her weekly articles in book form. The forty five articles selected by her are conveniently grouped in eight different categories, namely Bhikkhus, Bhikkhunis, Outstanding Persons, Architects and Artistes, Foreign Visitors, Women, Sportspersons and finally Places, Institutions and Services.

She explains the criteria used to select the material included in People, Events, Places. They are Sri Lanka-centric and they have a personal relevance, interest or significance to her. Some deal with persons, places and institutions of historic interest, others have arisen from interviews with prominent personalities.As her current editor Manik de Silva points out in his foreword to the collection, Nan ‘has drawn from a background of a conservative Kandyan upbringing (against which she sometimes rebelled but eventually came to terms with)…’ Her liberal and inclusive worldview has prompted her in to focus especially on women in her choice of topics; particularly aspiring and accomplished women writers.

Among the interesting personalities you will meet in People, Events, Places are Ivor Jennings, Lorna Wright, Gamini Dissanayake, Barbara Sansoni, M. Chandrasoma, Ena de Silva, Senake Bandaranayake, Rukmani Devi, Nimal Mendis, Jean Arasanayagam, Hema Jayasinghe and Ishvari Corea. A stellar cast!Behind the illusive pseudonym, Nan is a person and personality that is easy to discern. She has a clutch of memories, a wealth of life experiences, a code of ethics and a consistent moral compass which come through most every column that she pens. And this is why, though living away from Sri Lanka for three decades, each Sunday morning which dawns earlier for me, I read her column even before her intended audience in Sri Lanka.

Her genius arises from her own story. A very traditional aristocratic upbringing in a bygone era, an education that awakened inquiry and a lifetime of reading that opened her to the world outside, beyond her own confines. Above all, friendships, acquaintances and experiences that moulded and enriched her sensibilities such that she could in her writing speak to, influence, educate and enrapture the unsuspecting reader. She has the gift and a magic pen which together are able through her column, to transport us to faraway places, people and events; an experience not to be missed.