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Shirani Rajapakse

Goodreads Author

Born

in Colombo , Sri Lanka

Website

https://shiranirajapakse.wordpress.com

Twitter

https://twitter.com/shiraniraj

Genre

Poetry, Fiction, Ebooks

Member Since

August 2012

URL

https://www.goodreads.com/shiranirajapakse

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Shirani Rajapakse is a Sri Lankan poet and short story writer.

She is the author of four collections of short stories and four books of poetry.
Short Stories
"Breaking News" (2011, 2018) -shortlisted for the 2010 "Gratiaen Award",
"I Exist. Therefore I Am" (2018) – winner of the 2019 "State Literary Awards" and shortlisted for the 2019 "Rubery Book Awards",
"Gods, Nukes and a Whole Lot of Nonsense" (2021) winner of the 2022 "State Literary Awards, and,
"Offerings to the Blue God" (2023).

Poetry.
"Chant of a Million Women" (2017) won the 2018 "Kindle Book Awards", was chosen as an 'Official Selection' in the 2018 "New Apple Summer eBook Awards for Excellence in Independent Publishing" and received an Honorable Mention in the 2018 "Readers’ Favorite ...more

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Combine Editions
Shirani Rajapakse’s books

Average rating: 3.82 · 428 ratings · 75 reviews · 13 distinct works

	Flash Fiction International: Very Short Stories from Around the World by James Thomas (Editor), Robert Shapard (Editor), Christopher Merrill (Editor) 3.78 avg rating — 432 ratings — published 2015 — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	I Exist. Therefore I Am really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 9 ratings — published 2018 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Chant of a Million Women 4.86 avg rating — 7 ratings — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Samsara 4.33 avg rating — 3 ratings — published 2022 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Way It Is really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 3 ratings — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Gods, Nukes and a Whole Lot of Nonsense 4.50 avg rating — 2 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Breaking News liked it 3.00 avg rating — 2 ratings — published 2011 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Fallen Leaves it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 1 rating — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Offerings to the Blue God really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 1 rating — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Catastrophe and Environment 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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243 posts
Shirani Rajapakse's Blog

Speakers at the Asian Literary Festival

Happy to be among these wonderful writers in the Asian Literary Festival. I will be participating in the virtual session. Check out all the speakers below.

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Shirani’s Recent Updates

Shirani Rajapakse wrote a new blog post The Asian Literary Festival – 3rd – 5th October, 2025 The Asian Literary Festival is happening soon in Brussels.
Aug 25, 2025 04:24AM · like
Shirani rated a book it was amazing The Hunger Countess: based on a true story by Annette Spratte (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Inheriting her mother's strength The Hunger Countess is based on the true story of Countess Louise Juliane of Sayn-Wittgenstein. Set in Germany in the 1600s it is about the hasty decision taken by the countess to sign over her county to a distant rela ...more
Jul 09, 2024 11:13PM · 1 like · like · see review
Shirani made a comment on Nominated – State Literary Awards 2023 " K.S. wrote: "Congrats!" Thanks :) K.S. wrote: "Congrats!" Thanks :) ...more "
Sep 30, 2023 03:27AM · see blog post
Shirani made a comment on Women Scream – poetry anthology 2023 " K.S. wrote: "Congrats!" Thanks :) K.S. wrote: "Congrats!" Thanks :) ...more "
Sep 30, 2023 03:26AM · see blog post

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Quotes by Shirani Rajapakse (?)

“Raise your sons to be
better humans, before you tell your
daughters
to cover up.”
― Shirani Rajapakse, The Way It Is

tags: daughters, raising-children, shirani-rajapakse, sons, the-way-it-is

2 likes

“Your daughters are
receptors of knowledge, filled
with interesting ideas,
thoughts that could generate great
conversations, find solutions to the world’s
problems, if
you care to engage them in talk.
Don’t force them to be
something they are not, because your
sons have no control
over themselves.
Don’t shut them in,
imprison them
in shrouds, black cloaks
with only their eyes showing, covering
them up like corpses ready
to be thrown on
a communal burial heap.”
― Shirani Rajapakse, The Way It Is

tags: black-cloaks, daughters, head-scarf, imprisonment, shirani-rajapakse, the-way-it-is

0 likes

“Democracy rules, you know. We have
freedom of expression, or so
we are told, yet our lips are sealed with
unspoken threats.”
― Shirani Rajapakse, The Way It Is

tags: democracy, freedom-of-speech, sealed-lips, shirani-rajapakse, the-way-it-is, threats

0 likes

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Shirani’s Groups

SIA Showcase for Readers and Writers — 1105 members — last activity Sep 02, 2025 08:41AM
From the group that coined the term bookwhack*, here is the official bookwhack group! In all seriousness, we at Support Indie Authors understand how ...more

Goodreads Librarians Group — 292422 members — last activity 1 minute ago
Goodreads Librarians are volunteers who help ensure the accuracy of information about books and authors in the Goodreads' catalog. The Goodreads Libra ...more

Support for Indie Authors — 16528 members — last activity Sep 03, 2025 09:11AM
Officially 15k Members Strong & Climbing!! Building and supporting a community of self-published authors dedicated to both sharing experiences and le ...more

Review Group — 5527 members — last activity 7 hours, 47 min ago
Reviews are very important for Self-Published (SP), and Indie authors, just as they are for others. Unfortunately, though, many SP/Indie books don't g ...more

¡ POETRY ! — 22425 members — last activity Aug 29, 2025 08:43PM
No pretensions: just poetry. Stop by, recommend books, offer up poems (excerpted), tempt us, taunt us, tell us what to read and where to go (to read No pretensions: just poetry. Stop by, recommend books, offer up poems (excerpted), tempt us, taunt us, tell us what to read and where to go (to read it!) Goodreads honors wordsmiths: poets and poetry promoted and prompted here. ~~~ "Poetry is the synthesis of hyacinths and biscuits." -- Carl Sandburg “God has a brown voice, as soft and full as beer.” —Anne Sexton On Clouds – “…what primitive tastes the ancients must have had if their poets were inspired by those absurd, untidy clumps of mist, idiotically jostling one another about…” —Yevgeny Zamyatin “If the poet wants to be a poet, the poet must force the poet to revise. If the poet doesn’t wish to revise, let the poet abandon poetry and take up stamp-collecting or real estate.” —Donald Hall “Poetry is a rich, full-bodied whistle, cracked ice crunching in pails, the night that numbs the leaf, the duel of two nightingales, the sweet pea that has run wild, Creation’s tears in shoulder blades.” —Boris Pasternak “Wanted: a needle swift enough to sew this poem into a blanket.” —Charles Simic “Language is a cracked kettle on which we beat out tunes for bears to dance to, while all the time we long to move the stars to pity.” —Gustave Flaubert “Poetry is not an expression of the party line. It’s that time of night, lying in bed, thinking what you really think, making the private world public, that’s what the poet does.” —Allen Ginsberg. ~~~~~ Amy King, Moderator Amy King is the recipient of the 2015 Winner of the WNBA Award (Women’s National Book Association). Her latest collection, The Missing Museum, is a winner of the 2015 Tarpaulin Sky Book Prize. She serves on the executive board of VIDA: Women in Literary Arts and is co-editing with Heidi Lynn Staples the anthology, Big Energy Poets of the Anthropocene: When Ecopoets Think Climate Change. She is also co-editing the anthology, Bettering American Poetry 2015, and is an Associate Professor of Creative Writing at SUNY Nassau Community College. ...more

Poetry Writing Contests — 117 members — last activity May 29, 2018 04:06AM
Welcome to Poetry Writing Contests, a group where each month, we'll have a theme, and anyone can enter a poem relating to it. Contests will start at t ...more

The Circle: for readers/beta readers/critiques/reviews/free reads — 2604 members — last activity 14 hours, 46 min ago
A circle of people preparing to publish their next/first book. Looking for beta readers? A critiquing partner? A review? Just looking for a free read? ...more

Goodreads Sri Lanka — 1085 members — last activity Mar 06, 2025 09:30AM
Welcome Readers Near & Far! This is a group for all Sri Lankan Goodreads members (and those interested in Sri Lanka). ...more

Writers Without Borders — 648 members — last activity May 24, 2025 12:31PM
We're a group of writers who...well, love to write, of course. We're here to promote our novels, blogs, WIP, awards and book signings. We're all for h ...more

Struggling Writers — 5271 members — last activity Aug 30, 2025 11:16AM
A space for aspiring writers, indie writers, passionate writers, fun-hearted writers, struggling writers 6/2020: As of June 2020, this group ...more

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