Breaking News

A 2010 Gratiaen Awards Shortlist A young girl searches for a loved one. A mother grieves for her sons. A soldier wakes up with a missing limb. A woman reveals her true nature when she blows herself up. A young boy is traumatized by the loss of his baby sister. These nine stories take you through glimpses of two civil wars and what it’s like to live under the threat of terrorism. Yet all is not dreary; there are glimpses of humor and satire as life goes on amidst pain and suffering.

Shirani Rajapakse is an internationally published, award winning poet and short story writer. She won the Cha "Betrayal" Poetry Contest 2013 and was a finalist in the Anna Davidson Rosenberg Poetry Awards 2013. Her collection of short stories Breaking News (Vijitha Yapa 2011) was shortlisted for the Gratiaen Award. Her critically acclaimed poetry collection Chant of a Million Women (self published 2017) won the 2018 Kindle Book Awards, received an Honorable Mention in the 2018 Readers' Favorite Awards and was chosen as an "Official Selection" in the 2018 New Apple Summer eBook Awards for Excellence in Independent Publishing. Rajapakse's work appears in many literary journals and anthologies around the world. Rajapakse read for a BA in English Literature from the University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka and has a MA in International Relations from JNU, India.