Denagama Siriwardena
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Denagama Siriwardena is a Sri Lankan poet and writer. He was born in 1945 in Wepathira - Hakmana(Sothern province - Sri Lanka). It was 19th February.
His father was Don Nikulas Jinadasa. Mother was Karunawathi Hettiarachchi.
Denagama Siriwardena started his school career from Pananwela government school. There he studied up to year eight. After that he studied at Hamana Methodist college.
Mr. Denagama worked for a time as a Bill clerk at a co-operative shop
After that he started teaching in a non-governmental school at Pottewela and became a teacher in 1964.
From 1967-68 he studied at the Teachers' Training college - Balapitiya.
As a teacher in his life career he taught in 23 schools in 23 years. Ampara, Colombo, Matara, Hambantota, Galle were some of the districts where he worked. This helped him to gain more experiences about various life styles which exist on the earth. Most of the people he met were poors. They had a daily struggle.It was to find food for their children. So from these kind of experiences Mr.Siriwardena became sensitive to the heart beats of poors.
In 1975 Mr. Siriwardena married Kusum Kodithuwakku. They moved to Hambantota that year.
In 1976 he published his first book. It was "Ane Mage Nadu Asanu", a collection of poetry. Even before this Mr. Siriwardena had written many Poems, Short Stories and Articles for Sinhalese News Papers.
1976 also saw the birth of the Siriwardenas first daughter. They named her Deepani Siriwardena. In 1979 their son Prabath Siriwardena was born.
In 1980 he partcipated in the famous July Strike as a school teacher. He was a district Unoin leader of Ceylon Teachers' Union. Siriwardena lost his teaching job as a result of the strike.
After being unemployed he started selling paddy in Sunday fairs. There his students helped him a lot. Mr. Siriwardena had to under go so many hardships as a merchant. Later all his experiences as a merchant came out as a youth novel. It was Gurupadhuru and it won the State Youth Literature award in 1995.
In 1982 he got his job back and also became a feature writer for Divaina Sunday news paper. He wrote so many novels and feature articles for Divaina. "Ekthara Police Niladariyekuge Kathawak" and "Ayoma" became very famous among them.
In 1985 the Siriwardena family moved to Matara, from Hambantota. There they settled down in Uyanawatta(1km far from Matara town).
In 1987 he resigned from his job, teaching, and in 1988 Mr. Siriwardena joined Vidusara science magazine as a Sub editor. Latter he became the deputy editor of Vathmana magazine.
In 1994 Mr. Siriwardena won the IBBY award for his youth novel Mithuro.
In 1995 he resigned from both Vathmana and Vidusara. Then joined Lake House as the deputy editor of Mahaweli Diyawara.
After that he became the deputy editor of Silumina news paper. Since then he is working there up to now.
In 1998 Mr.Siriwardena won his second State Youth Literature award. It was for his fifth youth novel, Punchi Gopalla.
Mr. Siriwardena has written two collection of poetry, two short stories, six novels, six youth novels, four biographies, two children's stories and more than hundred "Bosath Katha"s.
