What is diplomacy? It is the art and science of maintaining peaceful relationships between different individuals and nations. For this, a core requirement is understanding. It is when an individual or nation understands each other that there is peaceful co-existence. This can be challenging to achieve as nations are collectives of people that are diverse not just in geographical locales but also attitudes, customs and habits.
What is literature? It is a form of expression part and parcel of the everyday lived in experience of human beings. Literature encompasses artistic creation involving the written word that is moulded into verse, poetry, short stories or novels. As a medium of mass communication, literature has the power to connect mankind where the common struggle to survive and seek joy in life overrides all other differences.
So what does diplomacy have in common with literature? Both literature and diplomacy have complementary goals and objectives because both seek to communicate and understand diverse phenomena connected to human beings of differing cultures and locations.
In the formal discipline of diplomacy one finds that the world does not use enough of literature and the arts in full scope to bridge the gap of nations and people.
Read Plus Foundation
Last month, organised by Sri Lankan publishers of Read Plus Foundation; a group of small and medium scale publishers held a felicitation at the Sri Lanka Book Publishers Association (SLBPA) auditorium, to honour an effort where literature and diplomacy merged. The felicitation was for Dinesh Kulatunga, a veteran Sri Lankan publisher whose most recent global accolade was being bestowed with the China Special Book Award by the Chinese Government and being the first Sri Lankan publisher (in the Asian and South Asian Region) to receive this award.
The award was initially presented at a ceremony in China on June 14 and re-presented in person by the Cultural Counsellor of the Embassy of the Peoples Republic of China in Sri Lanka Zhang Yingbao and Ms. Li Qingrui, the First Secretary of the Embassy of People’s Republic of China in Sri Lanka at the SLBPA recently.
Dinesh Kulatunga, the founder of Neptune publications, is a member of the Sri Lanka Book Publishers’ Association since 2005 and is at present its Secretary General. He is the founder president of Read Plus Foundation, a collective of 13 publishing houses in Sri Lanka that focuses on a local as well as global approach to promoting reading.
He is part of the International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY) established in 1953 headquartered in Basel, Switzerland and heads the IBBY Sri Lanka operations. As one of its latest ventures, Neptune publications last year introduced books with Augmented Reality (AR) technology using heightened technology targeting the young generation and introducing Audio Books.
In September 2022, the online platform was created by Neptune Goodreads company to discuss the AR technology and book publishing with publishers from USA, China, Russia, India and Sri Lanka. This led to the creation of networks and opportunities for all those involved.
Dinesh Kulatunga was honoured with China’s highest national award given to those who have made outstanding contributions in introducing contemporary China and promoting Chinese publications and related cultural products overseas. The award, established in 2005, is given to international authors, translators, and publishers.
“This is the 16th year of this award given out throughout the world. With regard to Sri Lanka, we are this year discussing with the local authorities on increasing the promotion of Sri Lankan literature in China and are working towards this objective. We are honoured to present this award to Dinesh Kulatunga for his major contribution to fuse literary and knowledge based ties between Sri Lanka and China,” said the Cultural Counsellor of the Embassy of China, Zhang Yingbao.
Translations
“As part of the global focus of Neptune, we have been translating and publishing Chinese books since 2016. Translations were done directly from Chinese language, translated by local translators and some books from the English language. Over 200 books pertaining to China, have been translated and published in Sinhala; some in all three languages of Sri Lanka; Sinhala, Tamil and English.
Those include books about the Chinese Political System, Governance, Development, Environment, Disarmament, Children’s and Young Adults’ fictions and non-fiction and general fiction and non-fiction including award winning books,” said Shane Perera, Director of Neptune Publications.
The special felicitation ceremony held at the SLBPA Auditorium was marked by commentaries and insights by members of Sri Lanka’s publishing industry.
“Publishing is not merely the producing, importing or exporting and selling of books. It is a bond that is established between the reader and the author and surmounts national borders,” said Pradeep Gamage of Good Reads Lanka.
M. Safeer, theatre practitioner and publisher who is a founding member of Read Plus explaining the leadership of Dinesh Kulatunga in forming the Read Plus foundation said that the idea to bring local and international oriented momentum to medium scale publishers began after the Easter Sunday attacks of 2019.
Sidney Markus Dias, founder of Thottanna publishers and based in Anamaduwa, who was one of the pioneers of intercultural oriented publications in Sri Lanka, publishing mainly in Sinhala and Tamil said that Dinesh Kulatunga had led the way for publishers in Sri Lanka to seek out avenues in the world to promote Sri Lankan writers as well as to showcase the literary potential of other nations here.
“What we need is a balanced representation where both our writers and those of other nations are promoted. We live in a world where understanding and dialogue is needed between people, communities, and nations,” Sidney said.
Eye opener
A key take away from this event and the significance of the book award from China was that it served as an eye opener for the immense potential that the publishing industry holds to navigate through whatever challenges within the economy to create inroads into knowledge dissemination.
Dinesh Kulatunga said, “I commenced my career in printing as a part-time proof reader at a commercial printing press while reading for my external degree at Peradeniya University. My interest grew to learn printing as a subject though the industry was not that lucrative at the time.
It was during the 1980s. After studying printing as a subject partly through the Sri Lanka Institute of Printing, but mainly self-studying with the help of foreign books, and hands-on experience, I served a multinational company as an executive. Since then I had opportunities to go abroad to participate in publishing and printing related exhibitions and further study about this interesting industry.”
Not owning his own printing equipment made him connect with far away printers in Singapore and Malaysia who were far ahead of technology at that time.
“I was fortunate to have a strong contact of one of the best design companies (Q&E Advertising of Dr. Vijith Kannangara) which supported me to get high quality print tasks done. While doing my printing assignments in those countries, I gained more knowledge and exposed to new technology used by different parts of the world. I went to Japan for another printing related assignment, and was able to follow a short-term course in Print Technology,” he said.
In 1994, he visited Print-Pack in Illinois, Chicago USA as part of an educative conference on printing and spent two weeks there with a Sri Lankan group of printers and packaging entrepreneurs, visiting an exhibition and a few factories as part of the formal program. From 1999-2000, devoting time to get his qualification through the Australian National Training Authority and returning to Sri Lanka and collaborating with a Dutch writer to produce a consumer guide ‘Hands-On-Colombo’ made him combine publishing with tourism promotion.