Sunanda Mahendra

Who is Sunanda Mahendra?

Sunanda Mahendra’s Ogha Tharanaya won the State Literary Award for the best Sinhala poetry collection, 2006. Many poems from the collection are now translated into English. He has won the State Literary Award for the best original play script, the best research work and the best two Sinhala novels. He is a Sinhala Radio Play writer in Sri Lanka.

Mahendra was formerly a professional broadcaster at home as well as the BBC World Service based in London, where he also read for his doctorate. He was a visiting fellow in Mass Communication attached to the University of Leicester, UK, and presently holds the emeritus professorship at the University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka. The outstanding contribution to his expertise field of Mass Communication made him the recipient of the covetous UNESCO Copernicus award for Social Sciences in 1983. He is an alumnus of Dharmaraja College, Kandy and Ananda College Colombo.

Sunanda Mahendra, at present, is a regular contributor to the Sinhala and English Press in Sri Lanka.