User talk:Blackaustralian

Sunil Govinnage
Sunil Govinnage is an Australian poet/novelist who was born in Sri Lanka, and he writes in two languages (Sinhala & English).

Govinnage began his career as a primary health care worker in a remote village in Sabaragamuwa province in Sri Lanka, and then moved into be an administrator & educator in Family health and Nutrition in the NGO Sector until 1985 and he worked for a brief period as a media consultant to late Prof Cyril Ponnamperuma at the Institute of Fundamental Studies, Hantana, Kandy, Sri Lanka. During 1986 and 1988 he worked as an information professional at the Asian Institute of Technology. Govinnage immigrated to Australia with his two children and physician wife in 1988, and commenced worked as a Civil Servant in the Western Australin Public Sector.

Sunil Govinnage has been writing poetry in Sinhala since 1965 and in English since 1989. He moved from Sri Lanka to Perth in the late 1980s and has worked as a full-time civil servant in Western Australia since December 1988. He has an MA from Murdoch University.

Most of his English work has been cited in Australia's largest literary database; AusLit

Govinnage's debut novel- The Black Australian is considred as "a literary chronicle, that aims at setting down the aches, pains and pleasures of a diasporic psyche, driven relentlessly by a nameless restlessness, that stubbornly refuses to be quelled. In spite of the formal avowal, that the characters, incidents and situations in this work are entirely fictional, it is stark clear, that the protagonist Siripala Wickramasinghe is the fictionalised alter ego of the Author himself.

Govinnage has previously published short prose and his first collection of short stories is titled Black Swans and Other Stories. Writing an introduction to Govinnage's work, Hawaii-based Academic Professor Wimal Dissanayake wrote:

"The protagonists of Sunil Govinnage's stories encode the anxieties and desires of the diasporics, caught as they are between the two chimeras of home and exile. The dialectic between localism and globalism only serves to intensify the pains of this phenomenon. The notions of cultural Otherness and difference, which are vitally connected to cultural identity, run like an underground stream throughout these stories. One has only to glance at the contemporary Australian political landscape to realize the salience of Otherness and difference. The bellicose rhetoric coming out of Pauline Hanson and the One Nation Party has struck a deep chord of resonance in nearly a quarter of the Australian population as reflected in the recent Queensland election, while campaigns, like, 'Living in Harmony', promoting slogans like 'You, Me, Australian' are seeking to counteract this pernicious trend. Many of Sunil Govinnage's short stories need to be understood against this background. In fact, in one of the stories, there are clear references to the One Nation Party."

POETRY:

Govinnage has published four collections of poetry in Sinhala. His third Sinhala collection of poetry, Mathaka Mawatha, (Passage of Memory), won the Best Poetry Award, 2010, presented by Godage International Publishers, Sri Lanka. His English poetry has been read in Australia, Canada, Hungary, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, and the USA and published in Australia, Canada, Singapore, Sri Lanka, the UK and the USA. [Source: Perth: My Village Down Under]

GOVINNAGE'S SELECTED WORKS (POETRY) (1) Advice to My Daughter on Valentine's Day "As far as I’m aware, this is your first Valentine’s Day!",Sunil Govinnage,2011, —published in: Perth - My Village Down Under : A Collection of Australian Poetry 2011;

(2) Another Winter Night "The winter winds crawl through", Sunil Govinnage, 2011, —published in: Perth - My Village Down Under : A Collection of Australian Poetry,2011;

(3) As the Summer Dusk Invades "As the summer dusk invades the day", Sunil Govinnage, 2011. —published in: Perth - My Village Down Under : A Collection of Australian Poetry, 2011;

(4) At Keukenhof "Alone", SunilGovinnage, 2011, poetry, —published in: Perth - My Village Down Under : A Collection of Australian Poetry,2011;

(5) Australia Day 2004 : An Unfinished Poem "Even the Swan River looks sad", Sunil Govinnage, 2011. —published in: Perth - My Village Down Under : A Collection of Australian Poetry2011;

(6) Autumn "The roads I travel", SunilGovinnage, 2011. —published in: Perth - My Village Down Under : A Collection of Australian Poetry,2011;

(7) Bronzed Kangaroos in Perth "The bronze Kangaroos drink", Sunil Govinnage, 2011. —published in: Perth - My Village Down Under : A Collection of Australian Poetry,2011.

(8)Buried Love "While you read him the poems I shared with you", Sunil Govinnage, 2011, poetry —published in: Perth - My Village Down Under : A Collection of Australian Poetry, 2011.

(9) Counting Life and Rainbow Paths "I have now begun to count life in decades", Sunil Govinnage, 2011. —published in: Perth - My Village Down Under : A Collection of Australian Poetry, 2011.

(10) Don't Speak to Me of Derrida "Please don't speak to me of Derrida", Sunil Govinnage, 2011. —published in: Perth - My Village Down Under: A Collection of Australian Poetry, 2011.