Pramudith D Rupasinghe

Laureate of the Golden Aster Award for Global Literature 2020 for his historical fiction Bayan, Pramudith D. Rupasinghe has explored new horizons in writing with his unique writing style, “writing without borders” by being physically present in the places where his stories take place. 

Humanitarian by profession, Pramudith served in Asia, Europe, Africa, and the Middle East for almost two decades until he embarked on his writing career following his short story collection “Footprints in Obscurity” (2015) based on his visits to 29 territories in the African continent. The following year (2016), he published his first work of full-length fiction, “Behind the Eclipse”— a story set in the context of the West African Ebola Crisis, where he worked with the United Nations. Behind the Eclipse has been listed among the ten best books ever written by Sri Lankan authors who write in English. 

Rupasinghe adventured Ukraine just after the annexation of Crimea and the birth of the crisis in the eastern regions, and recently after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Through a life of a 73-year-old man, Pramudith not only depicted the calamitous dynamics in the region after the fall of the Soviet Union but also hinted at what is happening in Ukraine today: Bayan, his historical fiction set in Ukraine, won The Golden Aster Award for Global Literature, 2020. 

“She Who Became the Moon”, the latest story of Rupasinghe, is set in, Kandapara brothel village in Bangladesh, and it’s the first and only work of Rupasinghe set in South Asia so far.

His books have been translated into French, German, Russian, Polish, Burmese, and Sinhalese.