As we found out the first school he attended for his primary education was St.

The only thing that we know for sure is that he had to suffer serious economic hardships, and because of that he had to abandon his schooling. Though he wrote three memoirs, there isn’t any detailed account of his family background such as his parent’s profession, their hometown, the family’s early life. He was the youngest of a family of four brothers. Senanayake or Gunathilake Bandara Senanayake was born on Jat Mulleriyawa, Colombo. This great writer’s 108th birth anniversary falls on this July 13, and we thought to read his literature with regard to his life.

Besides that, he is the pioneering Sinhala poet in Sri Lanka who found free verse poetry or ‘Nisandes’. In other words, he found a new short story genre in between prose and verse. He created an artistic language to portray the present experiences, and highlighted the importance of poetic styles in short story. He is the writer who developed Sinhala short story to its artistic stage focusing on the structure. If someone considers Sinhala short story writers in Sri Lanka, the first name after Martin Wickramasinghe that comes into mind is G.B.