A World of Books: Martin Wickramasinghe in Colombo.

Описание: Self-Education in Colombo: Having moved to Colombo at the age of 16 without a formal school education, Wickramasinghe made the city his "classroom" [01:47]. The libraries, people, conversations, and especially the books he read, shaped his mind before he published his first work [01:58].

The Power of Reading: The speaker emphasizes that to fully appreciate his immense contribution as a writer (authoring 13 novels, short stories, and countless essays), one must understand not just what he wrote, but what he read [08:55].

The Wickramasinghe Collection: His private collection at the National Library in Colombo contains over 5,000 titles [09:09]. These books, some dating back to the 1900s, feature his personal, often critical, marginal annotations [09:49].

Rationalist and Freethinking Influences: In his early years in Colombo, he immersed himself in books and periodicals, seeking to satisfy his curiosity about science and nature [19:32]. He was profoundly influenced by rationalist writers and freethinkers, including American orator Robert Ingersoll and the writings of the Rationalist Press Association (which published thinkers like Darwin and Huxley) [20:06].

Developing a Critical Mind: The more he read, the more he became critical of the writers he encountered, which gave him the "elasticity" to become a writer himself [25:02]. This period fueled his desire to write for public platforms like the newspaper Dinamina [26:35], and encouraged him to master both English and Sinhala literature [27:33].