By P.K. Balachandran, IANS
Colombo : Ignoring the bombs going off in the vicinity, leading lights of English literature from across the globe are meeting in the quaint Dutch-built city of Galle in south Sri Lanka for a four-day bonanza of lectures, readings, panel discussions and book launches.
About 600 participants, including 50 from overseas, converged on Galle Wednesday as bombs ripped through a passenger bus and an army personnel carrier killing 28 people in the adjacent Moneragala district, marking the end of a six year truce between the government forces and the Tamil Tiger rebels.
Among the leading figures at Galle this year are Gore Vidal, Vikram Seth, William Dalrymple, Simon Winchester, Shyam Selvadurai, Nuri Vittachi and Carl Muller. Sohba De opted out at the last minute.
But the end of the ceasefire and the spread of hostilities to the generally placid south Sri Lanka in recent months have affected attendance. Initially, 2,000 writers and enthusiasts, including 150 from abroad, had written to say that they would like to attend, a festival official said.
However, the Galle Literary Festival has come to stay because it has already made a mark internationally.
“The attendance and the quality of the programmes had been so good last year, that Harper’s Magazine had immediately voted it the number one literary festival among six such festivals across the English speaking world,” said Libby Southwell, the festival director.
In just one year, it had been placed alongside the Hay Festival in Columbia and the Wexford Book Festival in Ireland, observed Red Dot, a Sri Lankan travel agency with a British link that promotes the festival.
This year, there would be 70 events including film shows and children’s programmes.
There is also an educational side to the festival, which is perhaps unique. One of the main aims of the Galle festival is to spread the English language among the rural and under-privileged children in Sri Lanka who have no access to it.
Programmes have been devised to suit kids between six and 16. The idea is to encourage children to think and express themselves creatively, recognize and award students’ literary achievements, organize competitions and support the teaching of the English language in areas without facilities.
The organizers had zeroed in on Galle because of its quaint and old world Dutch colonial atmosphere. The Galle fort, with the waves of the Indian Ocean lashing its southern ramparts, magically transports visitors to a typically Dutch-colonial outpost of the 17th and 18th centuries.
Sri Lanka is no stranger to European litterateurs and artistes. Since Robert Knox’s first work in 1681, the island has captivated the English-speaking world. Among those who had stepped on the island and admired its beauty were Mark Twain, Pablo Neruda, D.H. Lawrence, Somerset Maugham, and Anton Chekov. The renowned science writer, Arthur C. Clarke, has made it his home for the past half a century.
French composer Georges Bizet’s exotic 1863 opera “The Pearl Fishers” was set in Sri Lanka, though Bizet himself had not visited the island ever. Coincidentally, a French troupe was in the island to perform the opera last week.
The Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority (SLTDA) has sensed the potential of the Galle festival to attract tourists of a particular kind to Sri Lanka.
“This is the age of events tourism. Tourism now is no longer just seeing places. It has to be experiential and should help broaden minds,” Renton de Alwis, chairman of SLTDA, told IANS.
The SLTDA is not extending any concessions to the organizers or participants in the Galle festival, but it is promoting it abroad as an event worth attending. It sees in the festival a potential to cater to the needs of a niche market overseas.