journalism, the specific instance being a cartoon by Aubrey Collette showing Mrs. Sirimavo Bandaranaike and Dr. N.M. Perera together in a vulgar embrace, which he considered to be in poor taste. He then founded the English Department at a former Buddhist seat of higher learning, Vidyalankara University (now University of Kelaniya). He worked with Lester James Peries on his ground-breaking Sinhala films, Gamperaliya and Golu Hadawatha. He was one of those who worked for the creation of a National Film Corporation for Sri Lanka, which was established in 1971. In the mid 1970s, at the Curriculum Development Centre of the Ministry of Eductation, Siriwardena collaborated in the introduction of a controversial new English literature syllabus for the Advanced Level which, to the consternation of the conservatives, included the lyrics of Bob Dylan's Blowin' in the Wind, which replaced Shakespeare. In the 1970s, Siriwardena became founder-secretary of the Civil Rights Movement of Sri Lanka, a non-governmental organisation for human rights. In the 1980s, he was sought out by the liberal-left intelligentsia who founded the International Centre for Ethnic Studies (ICES) in Colombo, where he edited its journal. In 1988, at a seminar organised by the British Council, Colombo Siriwardena debunked the reputation of TS Eliot, arguing that the technical mastery in his poetry concealed a poverty of experience and a narrow range of sympathies; that in his work creative powers are expanded on negative emotions of repulsion and disgust, springing from personal malaise (snobbery, misogyny and anti-Semitism); and that he was a great literary engineer rather than a great poet. This caused some ripples in the literary circles of Sri Lanka, which had idolised Eliot. In 1995 Siriwardena won the Gratiaen Prize, the Sri Lankan literary award for the best writer in English. In September 2004 he was conferred the Distinguished Service Award for his contribution to English letters at the State Literature Festival, which had to be accepted in absentia. Works Poems Waiting for the Soldier (1989) To the Muse of Insomnia (1990) Poems and Selected Translations (1993) Octet: Collected Plays (1995) The Lost Lenore (1996) Among My Souvenirs (1997) Working Underground: The LSSP in Wartime (1999) The Pure Water of Poetry (1999) Screenplays Gamperaliya (1965) (as Reggie Siriwardena) Golu Hadawatha (1969) (as Reggie Siriwardena) Scholarly work MA de Silva & Reggie Siriwardena, Communication Policies in Sri Lanka: a Study, Paris: Unesco, 1977. Reggie Siriwardena, K. Indrapala, Sunil Bastian &