Beyond the bookshelf: Sarasavi’s mission to make Sri Lankan stories heard

For Amendra Haputhanthri, books are not merely products — they are instruments of knowledge, character, imagination and change

There are books that entertain, books that educate and books that change the way people see the world. And then there are books that allow people to see themselves.

For Amendra Haputhanthri, Director of Sarasavi Bookshop (Pvt) Ltd, that last quality is at the heart of a mission that goes well beyond selling books.

It is about ensuring that Sri Lankan writers, particularly those writing in English, have a place on the shelves, a place before readers and, ultimately, a place on the international literary stage.

That vision will come alive at Fairway Street of Stories, a three-day celebration of Sri Lankan English writing organised by Sarasavi from September 4 (today) to 6 at the Dutch Hospital Precinct, from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m.

More than 1,000 titles by Sri Lankan English writers will be available, while eight authors will participate in readings, author meet-and-greet sessions and signing events.

There will be children’s activities, an open-mic platform for unpublished writers, a programme by Every Story exploring women’s experiences through reading and drawing, and a book club quiz involving two book clubs.

The winning book club will receive a one-night stay at Fairway Hotel, while the runners-up will receive a book pack and Sarasavi discount voucher.

But for Haputhanthri, the event is not simply another literary festival.

It represents a philosophy that has been developing within her for years.

Sarasavi’s stated vision is to make books available and contribute towards building an intelligent, educated generation enriched with good morals. Its mission, she explains, goes beyond providing books to customers and includes supporting the younger generation in developing their knowledge, attitudes and talents.

For Haputhanthri, books are central to all of this.

“Books should add some value to you. They should give you personal growth. It should not be a waste of money.”

That belief also explains why Sarasavi takes its selection process seriously.

“There is a careful screening process when it comes to Sarasavi Bookshop as well as Sarasavi Publishers,” she says.

The content, she believes, must be worthwhile.

“It has to be adding some value to you.”

Haputhanthri’s commitment to Sri Lankan English writing was not something that emerged simply from a business strategy.

When she joined Sarasavi, she was involved in the imports section. The work required her to examine catalogues and read publishers’ synopses before selecting books.

Among the thousands of international titles, she began encountering writers who were Sri Lankan but whose works had been published abroad.

She remembers names such as Ashok Ferrey, Michael Ondaatje, Shyam Selvadurai and Carl Muller.

Something happened when she encountered their stories.

“These are Sri Lankan writers with Sri Lankan stories but published overseas,” she recalls thinking.

“I felt more closer to those stories than reading a story from New York or London. This is more closer to me. I felt it.”

That feeling eventually became a conviction.

A major turning point came when she attended the 30th Gratiaen Trust award ceremony and heard a speech by Michael Ondaatje from the first Gratiaen Trust event.

Ondaatje had spoken about the moment he discovered writers who reflected his own place and experience — a literary mirror of a world that had previously been absent from the books he read.

Haputhanthri says that idea profoundly affected her.

“Nothing is as exciting for us as to find our own place or our own stories in a book.”

And then came the line that she says transformed her thinking:

“When that happens, the self is doubled. We are no longer invisible.”

“I felt enlightened, basically, to find that,” she says.

From then onwards, she began giving greater prominence to Sri Lankan English writers in Sarasavi.

A dedicated rack was introduced for local authors writing in English, and staff members were encouraged to actively speak to customers about these books.

Because putting a book on a shelf is only half the battle.

The other half is getting somebody to pick it up.

The 200 manuscripts that disappeared and the seriousness of that responsibility became even clearer after a conversation with Jeremy Muller, son of the late Carl Muller.

At the launch of Chiara Mendis’s Lanka Box, Haputhanthri was speaking with Muller about his father’s work.

Carl Muller, whose The Jam Fruit Tree became an important work in Sri Lankan English literature, was being discussed.

Haputhanthri asked whether it was his first book.

“He said no, he has written 200 manuscripts before, which he burnt them all because no one wanted to publish it.”

For Haputhanthri, the revelation was devastating.

“Those stories never came to the public.”

She pauses over the significance of that loss.

“Just imagine how much of a loss that it is.”

The conversation also brought up another writer who had taken her own life after struggling to find a publishing opportunity for her work.

For Haputhanthri, these were not merely anecdotes about the publishing industry.

They represented stories, ideas and human experiences that had potentially disappeared forever.

And she began asking herself what responsibility publishers and booksellers had.

“This is your responsibility,” she recalls being told during the discussion.

That responsibility has remained with her.

She remembers the famous Spider-Man line: great power comes with great responsibility.

“There is something that I have to do, something that no one has done before. It’s to promote and bring these authors to the marketplace.”

The difficult business of creating readers

Giving authors a platform is one challenge.

Sarasavi has provided spaces for book launches, readings and other literary activities. But Haputhanthri says the more difficult task is persuading people to make time for literature.

“Even though you advertise on social media or papers or anything, people do not take this as a priority to make time for it.”

That is why Fairway Street of Stories has been designed around interaction rather than simply book sales.

The author is not hidden behind a book cover.

Discover another writer through a conversation.

Haputhanthri hopes that this personal engagement can slowly create a cultural shift.

“I really think that there will be a shift very slowly towards where people will understand that kind of life-changing effect that the books will have and especially your own stories.”

Her invitation is particularly aimed at people who do not consider themselves readers.

“Just come, especially if you’re not a reader, just to come and sit for those events, the author engagement events and all that.”

“I’m not a reader, but I want to find this transformational power. How would I do that? What are the books that I should read?”

That, she believes, is the kind of engagement Sarasavi wants.

But Haputhanthri’s ambitions do not end with developing a local readership.

“There are a lot of Sinhala books which we need to translate,” she says.

But translation alone will not solve the problem.

“We need to have good translators, good editors, good proofreaders working with it. That is essential.”

She is particularly concerned about the relatively invisible role of editors.

“There is so much to do for us to take our stories to the global arena.”

The publishing journey of internationally successful Sri Lankan writers, she points out, demonstrates that substantial editorial work can be necessary before a manuscript reaches the international market.

She believes Sri Lanka has no shortage of stories.

The challenge is preparing those stories to meet international publishing standards and creating pathways to international readers.

“People will love our stories,” she says.

“As much as they love our food and our culture and our country itself, they will definitely love our stories.”

Haputhanthri does not believe Sri Lankan writers necessarily have to jump immediately into the most difficult international markets.

“We don’t have to go to UK level, but at least to India level. From there we will start.”

She says she regularly raises the issue with representatives of major international publishing houses when she meets them.

Penguin Random House, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Bloomsbury and Hachette are among the international publishing names she has discussed the subject with.

The possibilities are not limited to traditional publishing.

An online platform that can help Sri Lankan books reach readers in other countries is another possibility.

But she recognises the scale of the challenge.

Yet she believes the task is unavoidable if Sri Lanka wants its literature to be properly represented beyond its borders.

There is another reason Haputhanthri believes reading matters.

It creates the possibility of original thinking.

She is concerned about the tendency in Sri Lanka for people to reproduce what others have already done.

“A lot of people in Sri Lanka, what I realise is people do something, they try to copy the same thing.”

Her answer is not simply to tell entrepreneurs to be more creative.

She believes reading itself can help produce originality.

“If you think widely, if you think out of the box, actually a reader can do that.”

A reader, she argues, has access to different worlds, ideas and possibilities.

“You can come up with methods, you can come up with whole new ideas and businesses in the book trade itself.”

“The copying part is that originality is not coming from you, simply because you don’t read books.”

For her, reading is therefore not merely a cultural pastime.

Asked about the transformation taking place within Sarasavi itself, Haputhanthri is quick to reject the suggestion that she alone is responsible.

She points towards the company’s founder and her family.

The founder, now 82, continues to come to work and advise the organisation.

“He’s still coming to the work. He’s still advising us. I think he is the reason that Sarasavi is what it is.”

She also acknowledges the contribution of her father-in-law, mother-in-law and husband.

Her husband, she says, is particularly influential behind the scenes.

“He’s a very, you know, behind-the-scene kind of a person.”

But what happens behind the scenes matters.

“He has sort of, if I talk about my husband, he’s a very, you know, behind the scene kind of a person. But what he does behind the scene is definitely contributing to the success of Sarasavi that no one can replicate.”

She laughs when describing the difficulty of working with him.

“He is the worst boss I have ever worked with.”

His standards and way of thinking, she says, are often “four or five steps ahead” of everyone else.

She uses a Buddhist analogy to explain why his thinking can be difficult to communicate.

In her interpretation, there are different levels of enlightenment, and some insights are difficult to pass on directly to others.

The result is a demanding working environment.

But she also sees that pressure as part of what has helped Sarasavi develop.

She sees similar qualities emerging in the next generation of the family.

Yet the underlying foundation remains unchanged.

There is a temptation to measure the success of a bookseller through sales figures, branches and market share.

For her, the true success of Sarasavi is ultimately connected to what happens after the transaction.

A reader discovers his or her own country in literature.

A story that might otherwise have remained unseen reaches another human being.

That is the larger ecosystem Haputhanthri wants Sarasavi to strengthen.

And Fairway Street of Stories is one attempt to do exactly that.

For three days, the Dutch Hospital Precinct will become more than a venue for selling books. It will become a meeting place between writers and readers, published voices and aspiring authors, children and stories, and perhaps most importantly, people who already love books and people who have yet to discover them.

The ultimate challenge is not simply to sell more books.

And through those readers, more original thinkers, more informed citizens and more confident writers.

Because somewhere among Sri Lanka’s thousands of unwritten or unpublished stories may be the next voice capable of telling the world something it has never heard before.

Haputhanthri believes those stories deserve that chance.

And perhaps the first step is as simple as walking into a bookshop — or into the Dutch Hospital Precinct this September — and opening a book.