Jean Arasanayagam

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Jean Arasanayagam (born Jean Solomons; 2 December 1931^[1] – 30 July 2019) was a Sri Lankan poet and fiction writer. She wrote her works in English. The theme in her work was ethnic and religious turmoil in Sri Lanka. Her husband, Thiyagarajah Arasanayagam and their two daughters, Devasundari and Parvathi, all share the same passion for writing, one, Parvathi has taken after Jean. She has made a mark of her own as a poet/writer.

Background[]

She was a Dutch Burgher, the term for offspring of Dutchmen and indigenous women.

Early life[]

Jean Lynette Christine Solomons was born on 2 December 1931 in Kandy, the daughter of Harry Daniel Solomons (1890–1981) and Charlotte Camille née Jansz (1889-1970), the youngest of three children. She grew up and spent her life mostly in Kandy. She attended the Girls' High School, Kandy and graduated from the University of Peradeniya. She later obtained her MA in Linguistics at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland. Being a passionate, lovable teacher to thousands of students in many institutions in Sri Lanka, she was also a visiting Fellow at the Faculty of Arts, Exeter University. Jean was married to a Jaffna Tamil and often dealt with multiple cultures and traditions, which may have moulded her ethnic consciousness and identity.^[2]

Death[]

Arasanayagam died on 30 July 2019 in Kandy.^[1]

Works[]

Past teacher of St. Anthony's College, Kandy

Poetry

• Kindura (1973)
• Poems of Season Beginning and a Season Over (1977)
• Apocalypse '83 (1984)
• The Cry of the Kite (1984)
• A Colonial Inheritance and Other Poems (1985)
• Out of Our Prisons We Emerge (1987)
• Trial by Terror (1987)
• Reddened Waters Flow Clear (1991)
• Shooting the Floricans (1993)
• Nallur
• ruined gopuram
• mother-in-law
• Fusillade

Prose

• The Cry of the Kite (A collection of short stories) (Kandy, 1984)
• The Outsider (Nagasaki University: Bulletin of the Faculty of Liberal Arts, 1989)
• Fragments of a Journey (Colombo : WERC, 1992)
• All is Burning (New Delhi : Penguin Books India, 1995)
• Peacocks and Dreams (New Delhi : Navrang, 1996)

Awards and recognition[]

In 2014 Arasanayagam was conferred with the prestigious Premchand Fellowship of Sahitya Akademi of India^[3]

References[]

External links[]

• Literary Encyclopedia page
• SAWNET: Bookshelf: Jean Arasanayagam