Janaka Malwatta Janaka Malwatta i(7533193 works by)
Born: Established: Kandy,
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Sri Lanka,
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South Asia, South and East Asia, Asia,
;
Gender: Male
Arrived in Australia: 2010
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BiographyHistory

Janaka was born in the Sri Lankan hill capital of Kandy. He came to Brisbane via London, where he spent much of his life. He caught the poetry bug as a medical student in London, and first performed poetry in London at the Stoke Newington International Airport in 2009.  

Most Referenced Works

Personal Awards

2021 shortlisted Queensland Poetry Festival Awards XYZ Prize for Innovation in Spoken Word with Ravikesh Singh (Dubla), for 'A beautiful land'.

Awards for Works

y separately published work icon Blackbirds Don't Mate with Starlings St Lucia : University of Queensland Press , 2022 24685571 2022 selected work poetry

'From Sri Lankan-Australian poet Janaka Malwatta, a superb collection that directs its imagining towards a just future for the next generation.

'This is a work of activism, fury and hope. Its urgent and purposeful poems contribute to the dismantling of racism, raging against its machinery. It combines performance poetry with poetries of witness and memory, recounting personal experiences of racism as well as historic injustices.

'The coherence of this collection comes from the incandescent rage that burns from the first poem to the last. Yet there is a measure of compassion here, a compassion that is able to register contradiction and complexity without passing judgement. Ultimately this superb collection directs its imagining towards a just future for the next generation.'  (Publication summary)

2021 winner Queensland Poetry Festival Awards Thomas Shapcott Poetry Prize for an Unpublished Manuscript
Last amended 19 Jul 2022 11:07:25
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