Marga Institute, in collaboration with the Martin Wickramasinghe Trust, will host a lecture by Uditha Devapriya on Martin Wickramasinghe on Monday, 26 January 2026.Titled “Disintegration, Transformation, and Development”, the presentation will focus on Wickramasinghe’s writings on economics and equity.

Though hailed as a novelist and writer of fiction, Wickramasinghe emerged in the early 20th century as the leading public intellectual of his time in Sri Lanka. His writings encompassed several subjects, including anthropology, art, culture, history, and politics. By the time of his death in 1976, these had been collected in numerous volumes of essays.

In its official statement, Marga Institute noted, “We are pleased to collaborate with the Martin Wickramasinghe Trust on an important intervention aimed at strengthening understanding among practitioners and development partners of the role and significance of economic development in early Sri Lanka.”

It added, “For over five decades, the Marga Institute has addressed development challenges through a multidisciplinary framework, analysing economic, social, political, environmental, and value-based dimensions. Its extensive body of research spans key sectors including agriculture, education, health, housing, poverty alleviation, children, youth, women, ethnic studies, justice, human rights, language rights, and social cohesion, complemented by wide-ranging surveys and community engagement initiatives. Through this collaboration, the Marga Institute seeks to further its mission of contributing to sustainable and equitable development in Sri Lanka and beyond.”

Founded in 1976, the Martin Wickramasinghe Trust is committed to keeping its namesake’s legacy alive. Its core responsibilities include preserving his Koggala home and Folk Culture Museum as well as conserving archives, manuscripts, letters, audio-visuals, folk collections, and artefacts from his life and times. The Trust also promotes literary, educational and cultural knowledge through events, lectures, seminars, and publications.

Uditha Devapriya is an independent researcher, columnist, and foreign policy and political analyst who has been writing on a range of topics and authored five books. He is currently involved in several research projects. One of these is a comprehensive study of Martin Wickramasinghe. He currently works as a research consultant at the Martin Wickramasinghe Trust. Since November last year, he has helped organise and has presented at lectures on Wickramasinghe, including for the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) UK and the India International Centre (IIC) in New Delhi.

Speaking of the event, Devapriya noted, “We tend to visualise and frame Wickramasinghe as a novelist, this great writer of fiction. He has been showered with epithets like Koggala Maha Pragnaya or the Sage of Koggala, yet we fail to realise that his fiction constituted only a part of his rich and varied career. He was writing on topics like anthropology and evolution long before they had become popular among Sri Lankan audiences. Not surprisingly, his range of interests included economics and development. He was particularly interested in social change. If you take his Koggala Trilogy. You will realise that the story is based on economic transformations which were unfolding across Sri Lanka at the time.”

The lecture will be delivered at Marga Institute on January 26, 2026 from 3 pm. The session will be moderated by Rumeth Jayasinghe, an undergraduate at the University of Peradeniya who is working with Uditha on a study of the 2022 economic and political crisis.

For enquiries, contact Uditha Devapriya through email at udakdev1@gmail.com.