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A. V. Suraweera Professor Alankārage Victor Suraweera, a life member of the Royal Asiatic Society of Sri Lanka, who was born in 12th October 1930 in Korasa, a village in present Gampaha district, passed away in 14th January 2014 at the age of 83 years. Suraweera had his primary education at the vernacular government school in his own village and Government English school at Gampaha, and attended Royal College for his secondary education. He entered the University of Ceylon in 1950 as a student of the first batch of Sinhalese Honours Program and obtained his B.A. in 1954 with a First Class Honours. In 1957, he obtained M.A. in Sinhala for the critical edition of the last four chapters of Pūjāvaliya, a 13th century classical text, together with an critical introduction, under the supervision of Professor D. E. Hettiarachchi. In 1964 Suraweera obtained his Ph.D. for the critical edition of Rājāvaliya, a prose text of 18th century belongs to the genre of Sinhala minor literature under the supervision of Professor Senarat Paranavitana and Professor D. E.  Hettiarachchi. The complete version of the Suraweera edition of Rājāvaliya, together with the critical introduction and notes etc., was published in Sinhala in 1976, and the English translation of the work done by Suraweera himself was published in 2000. Suraweera started his profession as a school teacher in 1954. He worked in Sri Rahula College in Katugastota and Ananda College Colombo till 1960. In 1960 he was appointed as an Assistant Lecturer in Sinhala in the newly established Vidyodaya (present day Sri Jayewardenepura) university and till 1994 he served the university in holding various posts and positions including Head of the Department of Sinhala, Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Chair Professor in Sinhala. Furthermore he was appointed as the Director of the Aesthetic Studies Institute (present day the University of Visual and Performing Arts in Sri Lanka). During his period in Vidyodaya and Sri Jayewardenepura he introduced various study programs. In 1967 he introduced a program of Post-graduate studies in Creative Writing in the Vidyodaya University. It was first and the only creative writing program in the Sri Lankan academic sphere. In 1987 founded the Programs of Diploma and Post-graduate Diploma in Writership and Communication. It was a highly esteemed and admirable footstep in the fields of communication and literary studies. It is worthy to note that all his academic positions from Assistant Lecturer to the Senior Professor he achieved were in the basis of merit promotions. He was accredited as the only academic who lecturing on the earliest writing specimen in Sinhala and up to the latest literary work. In admiration of his service the university conferred him the position of Professor Emeritus in 1994 and D. Lit. (Honoris Causa) in 1997. In 1968 Suraweera was offered a scholarship given by the Rockefeller Foundation and entered the University of Iowa and followed a course in Fellow in Writing. In 1977-78 on a Commonwealth fellowship he entered the University of Kent in UK and did research in the area of Sociology of Literature. In 1992 as the visiting Professor in the SOAS he studied into the Ola leaf manuscripts and early Sri Lankan Prints. After the retirement he contested the General Election in 1994 and elected as a Member of Parliament and awarded the position of Deputy Minister in Cultural and Religious Affairs. From the year 2000 he was appointed as the Director General of the Central Cultural Fund in Sri Lanka. From 2003 he was elected as the Chairman of the National Education Commission in Sri Lanka. Till his demise he was the Chancellor of the Rajarata University of Sri Lanka.

Suraweera hold the reputation as a creative writer well as a critic and literary theorist. He has started his writing career in 1957, soon after the graduation by publishing the book entitled Vicāra Vilāsaya, a treatise on the appreciation of classical Sinhala literature. Since then he had published nearly 60 books and monographs and hundreds of academic articles in refereed and non refereed journals for his credit. Among them five novels (Heyiyammāruva (1971), Noyan Putuni Gama Hära Dā (1975), Atta Biňdeyi Paya Burulen (1977), Sadā Melesa Pura Deraṇē (1980) and Anduru Dura Lana Räs (1983)); four collections of Short Stories (Kāṭat Mā Epā Velā (1969), Pǟdi Diyaṭa Bora Diya (1970), Goduru Loba (1973), Bava Timira (1984)); four books in Children literature (Vēlāva Balamu (1982), Ujāru Kumāri (1985), Kaḷā Mädiri Eḷi (1985) and Suratal Sinā Sīlā (1993));   six anthologies in literary studies (Vicāra Vilāsaya (1957), Siṁhala Sāhitya Sampradāya (1966), Navakatā Nirmāṇaya Hā Avabōdhaya (1973), Samājīya Sāhitya Adhyayanaya (1982), Sāhitya Vicāra Pradīpikā (1991) and Sāhitya Vicāra Saṁhitā (1995)), and four in Cultural Studies (Anurādhapura Saṁskṛtiya (1959), Anurādhapura Samājaya (1964), Siṁhala Katikāvat Hā Bhikṣu Samājaya (1971) and Lēkhana Samīkṣa (2011)), five critical editions of classical texts (Alakēśvara Yuddhaya (1965), Pūjāvaliya (1961 and 1998), Rājāvaliya (1976) and Tisara Sandēśaya ( 1991)), and some translation works on creative writing and literary theory are creditable to mention here. The special features of the writership of Prof Suraweera are the diversity, wide contribution, deepness and extensiveness. For some of his books he has won State Literary awards and Prof Suraweera is the only writer who had awarded more than six State Literary awards. And also he is the founder editor of the Vidyōdaya Research Journal which were started to be published by the University of Vidyodaya and bringing out up to date by its successor the University of Sri Jayewardenepura. Prof. Suraweera is the initiator of introducing occidental literary theory to the Sinhala reading public in the mode of translations. In 1984 He translated the Poetica by Aristotle into Sinhala through its English translations. The significance of this Sinhala translation is that the translator had used five various English translations of the Poetica and setting up his Sinhala version as a 'critical translation'. In 1987 Suraweera published the Sinhala translation of What is Art? By Leo Tolstoy. As an initiator of introducing Marxist Literary Theory into Sinhala academia Suraweera translated some articles by Georg Lukacs, Raymond Williams, Richard Hogart and several others. Furthermore he has translated the works by literary giants as T. S. Eliot, Graham Hough and Anton Chekhov for the benefit of the Sinhala reading public. Though Prof Suraweera's contribution to the Royal Asiatic Society's journal limits to two articles, they are in very high academic quality. First one is "Text Editing in Sinhala: History and Methodology" has been published in Vol. xxxvii in 1994. In this article the writer discuss the ancient history of text editing from its beginning to the middle of 19th century. In a lecture delivered at the Royal Asiatic Society Suraweera analyzed and appreciated the contribution of Sir D. B. Jayatilaka in the sphere of Sinhala literatiure and Culture. This memorial lecture was published in the Vol XLI of the Royal Asiatic Society's journal. His valuable contribution on the fields of literature, culture, education and the role of a public service were honoured and awarded the National honor Kalā Kīrti in 1989 and Sāhitya Ratna in 2008. He was felicitated by his contemporaries, collegues and students in 1990 by publishing a festschrift. It can clearly say that the rather untimely demise of Prof A. V. Suraweera is an irretrievable loss to the fields of academic and creative writing in the country.