The Gratiaen Trust

Congratulations to Visakesa Chandrasekaram on being awarded this year’s Gratiaen Prize. Chosen from an exceptional shortlist, this winning work stood out for its exceptional originality, craft, and literary excellence. #GratiaenTrust #GratiaenPrize #Winner2025

Are you working on a literary translation? Keep an eye out for the call for entries for the H.A.I. Goonetileke Prize, and follow the Gratiaen Trust for official updates at gratiaen.com #GratiaenTrust #HAIGoonetilekePrize

From bold new perspectives to stories that stay with us, the Gratiaen Prizehas championed Sri Lankan writing since 1992. Could your work be next? Explore the prize, discover past winners, and find submission guidelines at gratiaen.com #GratiaenTrust #GratiaenPrize

The blank page.. The character who has a mind of their own.. or, that deadline that just won't stop approaching. This Halloween, we’re celebrating the little horrors every writer knows all too well. May your stories be frighteningly good! #GratiaenTrust #SpookySeason #Boo

As we look towards another Gratiaen Prize season, we return to Visakesa Chandrasekaram’s acceptance speech and his reminder that writers have a responsibility to keep telling the stories that might otherwise go unheard. #GratiaenTrust #GratiaenPrize #VisakesaChandrasekaram

Prepare for the call for entries! We invite writers and translators to get ready for another year of stories, ideas, and voices waiting to be discovered. The envelope is nearly open. Submission dates to be announced soon! Watch this space for more updates #GratiaenTrust

TBT! On Gratiaen Pods 3, award-winning poet, novelist, musician, and academic Dr. Joseph Anthony joins Dr. Sanjana Hattotuwa for a thoughtful exploration of creativity, storytelling, and the many forms through which we understand the world. Out on YouTube! #GratiaenPods

A room full of questions is always a good sign. At the Public Library, V. V. Ganeshananthan led a lively seminar that quickly became a conversation, with an engaged audience bringing their own questions, perspectives, and curiosity into the room. #GratiaenTrust

It was wonderful to see writers from the 33rd Gratiaen Prize shortlist take part in this year’s Colombo Literary Festival, sharing their work, perspectives, and experiences with a wider literary community. #GratiaenTrust #33rdGratiaenPrize #ColomboLiteraryFestival

Somewhere between “just one chapter” and an afternoon disappearing, a life with books quietly takes shape. The Gratiaen Guide explores the spaces, habits, and hidden corners that make a reading life richer #GratiaenTrust #TheGratiaenGuide #BookLovers #AReadingLife

This Children’s Day, we celebrate every young reader who gets lost between the pages, and every little storyteller discovering worlds of their own. May we always make room for their imagination to grow. Happy Children’s Day! #GratiaenTrust #ChildrensDay #YoungReaders

Our warmest congratulations to Savin Edirisinghe, recipient of the 32nd Gratiaen Prize, for Kata Katha: Gossip, Rumours, and Idle Talk which received the State Literary Award 2026 for Best Original Short Story Collection. #GratiaenTrust #SavinEdirisinghe #KataKatha

A room full of readers, listeners, and stories in motion. These moments from Untold Stories capture the people who brought the weekend to life, gathering around books, conversations, and the shared pleasure of experiencing literature together. #GratiaenTrust #UntoldStories

At Untold Stories, Ramya Jirasinghe and Andrew Fidel Fernando spent the weekend sharing readings, reflections, unpublished work, and candid conversations with guests in an atmosphere that felt intimate, generous, and alive with curiosity. #GratiaenTrust #CityOfDreamsSriLanka

If your reading list needs range, curiosity, and contrast: start here! Across 2010-2014, these Gratiaen Prize winners mapped cities and interiors, politics and poetry, dissent and disclosure, offering five very different perspectives into Sri Lankan writing. #GratiaenPrize

In Gratiaen Pods Episode 4, Ramya Jirasinghe, winner of the 31st Gratiaen Prize, joined Ameena Hussein for a thoughtful exchange on writing across forms, memory, and the legacies that shape storytelling. #GratiaenPods #LiteraryConversation #SriLankanWriting

Literacy begins with words, but it rarely ends there. This International Literacy Day, we celebrate every voice finding its page, and every reader finding a world within one. #GratiaenTrust #InternationalLiteracyDay

Welcome to The Gratiaen Guide: a series celebrating the places, rituals, and little literary pleasures that make a reading life richer. We’re mapping a few favourite places to read around Colombo. Where do you go when you want to disappear into a book? #GratiaenTrust

Five Gratiaen Prize winners. One street full of stories. Fairway Street of Stories brings together readers, writers, and conversations across three days at Hospital Street, Dutch Hospital Precinct. 4 - 6 September 2026 Hospital Street, Dutch Hospital Precinct #GratiaenTrust

A paperless society once sounded like a distant possibility. Today, much of everyday life already happens on a screen. Perhaps the question is no longer whether paper will disappear, but what we will continue to trust it with. What do you still prefer on paper? #GratiaenTrust

At the Gratiaen Prize, the British High Commissioner reflects on a definition that ought to extend beyond the professions we traditionally associate with intellect: to writers, poets, artists, and those who help us understand ourselves through creative expression. #GratiaenTrust