Martin Wickramasinghe

Martin Wickramasinghe

Martin Wickramasinghe (Sinhala: මාර්ටින් වික්‍රමසිංහ; Tamil: மார்ட்டின் விக்கிரமசிங்க) (1890-1976) was a Sri Lankan novelist, short-story writer, critic, essayist and editor. He is considered a pioneer writer of modern Sinhala literature. Life Events Wickramasinghe was born on 29 May 1890 in Koggala to a family of the village headman class in the Southern Province (Abhayasundere & Wijayarathna, 2022). His formal education at his village school lasted less than 5 years and at the age of fourteen, he was forced to leave Koggala for Colombo and Batticaloa in search of employment (Abhayasundere & Wijayarathna, 2022). His professional life as a writer started in 1920 at the Lake House group of newspapers where he became an editor of the daily Dinamina and the Sunday Silumina (Gunawardena, 2003). Wickramasinghe's life as a novelist began with  Leela  in 1914 (Gunawardena, 2003). His trilogy of Gamperaliya (1944), Yuganthaya (1948) and Kali Yugaya (1957) depicted the impact of moderni…