2016 Dec 20
The renowned poet, Anne Ranasinghe, passed away on the 17th of December this year, at her residence in Rosemead Place, Colombo. Born as Anneliese Katz on the 2nd of October in 1925, in Essen, Germany, Anne escaped Nazi Germany at the age of 13 years to live in England. Whilst living in England, she trained to become a nurse and completed her education in journalism. Eventually, she met and married a Sri Lankan medical professor, accompanied him to Sri Lanka and thus, became a resident of the country.
From the 1970’s onwards, Anne penned countless poems and prose, along with features and radio plays. She went on to become a well-known literary figure within Sri Lanka. Her works have been translated into nine languages. Her first collection of poems ‘And the Sun That Sucks the Earth to Dry’ was published in 1971. Among her most famous poems are ‘A Long Hot Day’ and ‘A Birthday In Autumn’. The recurring themes behind many of Anne’s poems appear to be the holocaust, alienation, the unpredictability of violence, and minority persecution. Her poems have been described as ‘vibrantly sensuous or stark and deeply moving’.
She has received countless awards for her contribution towards literature, most prominently including the State Literary award for Lifetime Achievement, the Sri Lanka Arts Council Prize for poetry and non-fiction, and the Sri Lanka Literary Award for the best collection of short stories. Anne Ranasinghe was a founding member of the English Writers’ Cooperative of Sri Lanka and an editor of its journal ‘Channels’. The Library of Congress has seven works by her.
The world of literature has lost a valuable contributor who will never be forgotten. Her funeral will take place at 5.00 pm on Wednesday the 20th of December at the General Cemetery Kanatte.
