Yasmine Gooneratne

Born in Colombo, educated at the Universities of Ceylon and Cambridge, Emeritus Professor Yasmine Gooneratne has taught, researched and published in the fields of English and Postcolonial Literature for 35 years. In recognition of her contribution to international scholarship she has been awarded the Order of Australia in 1990, Macquarie University’s first higher doctoral degree (D.Litt.) in 1991, the Samvad India Foundation’s 2001 Raja Rao Award, and the 2008 Sahithya Ratna Lifetime Achievement Award. She has been the Patron of the Jane Austen Society of Australia since its inception in 1990. She lives currently in Colombo; is a Trustee of the Pemberley International Study Centre, the research institution established in 1999 by her husband Dr Brendon Gooneratne in Haputale, Sri Lanka; is Patron of the Galle Literary Festival; and directs The Guardian Angels, a literary editing service she set up in Sri Lanka and Australia to assist new writers.

In addition to the South Asia-related writing listed below, her published books include studies of Jane Austen, Alexander Pope, Leonard Woolf and Ruth Prawer Jhabvala.

She can be reached at yasmine_writer@yahoo.com

Bibliography



The Sweet and Simple Kind
Perera Hussein, Colombo (2007)

A richly imagined world of love, political chicanery and family turmoil in the newly independent Sri Lanka of the 1950s and 60s. As a highly political family attempts to balance language with religion, and privilege with equity, two smart, sassy young women pursue their personal freedoms. The Sweet & Simple Kind enchants us with its combination of authenticity, humour and passion, and haunts us with reminders of what we were and what we might have been.

Shortlisted for the 2007 Commonwealth Writers Prize. Shortlisted for the 2008 Dublin International IMPAC Literary Award.

Shortlisted for 2007 Commonwealth Prize

Cooking, not writing, was her first love. Interview in the Sunday Times, Sri Lanka.

Review at writing.com.

Masterpiece and Other Stories
Indialog, New Delhi (2002)

Celebrating Sri Lankan Women's English Writing 1948-2000
Women’s Education & Research Centre, Colombo. (2002)



The Pleasures of Conquest
Penguin India. Random House Australia . (1995)

A novel of the post-colonial nineties. An ambitious design which subsumes myth, culture, politics, social commentary and satire, and stretches into two continents and centuries.

A Change of Skies
Picador Australia. Penguin Books India (1992)

Celebrations and Departures: Selected Poems 1951-1991
Wild and Woolley Pty Ltd., Sydney. (1991)

Relative Merits: A Personal Memoir of the Bandaranaike family of Sri Lanka
C. Hurst & Co., London, and St Martin's Press, NY (1989)

Silence, Exile and Cunning
Orient Longman Ltd., New Delhi. Sangam Press Ltd. London 1983. Second edition . (1983)

South Asian Women authors
Sawnet Bookshelf
Sawnet