A Sivanandan, novelist, intellectual giant dies

NEW DELHI: Ambalavaner Sivanandan, novelist and intellectual giant of Sri Lankan origin has passed away. He was 94.


For his novel, 'When Memory Dies', Sivanandan won the 1998 Commonwealth Writers' Prize in the 'Best First Book category for Europe and South Asia'.

Sivanandan was also director emeritus of London's Institute of Race Relations (IRR) and published scholarly articles on race, class and imperialism in 'Race & Class', a peer-reviewed academic journal.

Sivanandan was born on December 20, 1923, in Colombo, Sri Lanka. He left Sri Lanka for the UK after the 1958 riots, says a note about him on the IRR web site.

On coming to the UK, after a short stint as a clerk in Vavasseur and Co., Sivanandan took a job in Middlesex libraries and trained as a librarian. He worked variously in public libraries, for the Colonial Office library and in 1964 was appointed chief librarian at IRR in central London, says IRR.

The library on race relations built up by Sivanandan was, in 2006, moved to the University of Warwick Library, where it is today known as the Sivanandan Collection.

Tributes to Sivanandan poured in on social media today. About his writings, chief editor at LeftWord books, Vijay Prashad said: "This was Marxism at its most creative. His novel - When Memory Dies - stands the test of time."


A Cambridge professor, Priyamvada Gopal, called him "a powerful voice".



An academic from the University of London, Anamik Saha, said, "There was no better analyst of the intersection of race and class than Sivanandan."