W. A. Silva was a best selling author

Author

An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...

 of Sinhala literature. Wellawattearachchige Abraham Silva was born in Wellawatte

Wellawatte

Wellawatte, a suburb in Colombo, lies immediately south of Bambalapitiya and is classified as zone 6 within the Colombo Municipal region. The town begins at the old Dutch canal just before the Savoy Cinema and extends all the way south to the same canal that spills into the sea just before the...

, Colombo

Colombo

Colombo is the largest city of Sri Lanka. It is located on the west coast of the island and adjacent to Sri Jayawardenapura Kotte, the capital of Sri Lanka. Colombo is often referred to as the capital of the country, since Sri Jayawardenapura Kotte is a satellite city of Colombo...

. After receiving a formal Sinhala education, he wrote his first novel, "Siriyalatha", at the age of 17.

After studying Sanskrit

Sanskrit

Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...

 and Sinhala under Pelane Sri Vajiragnana Thero and reading world literature in his spare time while working as a clerk, Silva wrote Lakshmi, his second novel, in 1922. He continued to write popular novels and short story collections. Several of his novels include Kalae Handa (the first Sinhala novel

Novel

A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....

 to be made a movie) and Hingana Kolla, which was also made into a movie.

Silva edited the Siri Sara (1919-1923) and Nuwana (1940-1946) magazines, as well as a weekly newspaper, Lanka Samaya (1933). After his death, High Street in Wellawatte was renamed W. A. Silva Mawatha in his honour.

Publications

• Siriyalatha (1907)
• Lakshmi (1922)
• Hingana Kolla (1923)
• Pasal Guruvari (1924)
• Deiyanne Rate (1926)
• Kele Handha (1933)
• Daivayogaya (1936)
• Sunethra (1936)
• Vijayaba Kollaya (1938)
• Radala Piliruwe
• Handa pane
• Julihatha
• Ridihavadiya
• Lensuva
• Sakviti Raja
• Amurtha Hasthaya
• Dalakumar
• Arabian Nights (translation)
• Maya Yogaya (Play)
• Ramayanaya (translation)