Padma Beatrice Edirisinghe, a long time bilingual contributor to Lake House newspapers, including the Daily News, Sunday Observer and Silumina, passed away yesterday at the age of 82 following a heart attack.
Edirisinghe was the recipient of an award for best English writer and awarded the Divaman Prasada by Godage International for her prolific translations and writings in 2015.
A longstanding member of the English panel of the Arts Council, in 2007, she won the award for the best translation, named, Clarity amidst chaos authored by Prof A V Suraweera. Many translations later followed including the story of Colombo, translation of Changing face of Colombo by RL Brohier and then the Saga of the Sinhale, translation of Dr. K.N. Jayatilaka’s original book.
The history of the army too was written by her on the invitation of the Army but whatever happened to it remains a mystery.
Myriad constructive feats of hers followed in the writing field, such as, the young writers project for children, the all island teacher writers club and the launch of the children’s magazine by the Ministry of Education, the Jathaka stories retold for children project, all on her initiative.