Sunil Govinnage was born in 1950 in Ceylon (Sri Lanka) two years after it gained independence from the British. His exposure to literature began at the age of five when he read a translation of Hans Christian Anderson's 'Snow Queen' in Sinhala. Sunil taught himself English when he was 17 years of age, a language which he is still learning.

His family's economic circumstances and uncertainty created in Sri Lanka in the early 70s by the uprising among the Sinhalese youth forced him to give up his ambition of becoming an academic.

He joined Sri Lanka's Health Department as a primary health care worker in 1972 and worked in a remote part of the island. Over the last 25 years of his professional career, he has gone through a metamorphosis: From a Third World grass-roots Health Care worker to Information Technology professional in a Western Society.

Sunil left Sri Lanka in 1986 to accept a job as a Research Engineer/Information Officer at the prestigious Asian Institute of Technology in Bangkok. He migrated to Australia with his physician wife and two small children in 1988.

Sunil has written poetry and book reviews in Sinhala since 1974. He was well known for youth radio programs which he conducted regularly from 1974 to 1978 in Sri Lanka.

Sunil earned his BA (Arts) from the University of Sri Lanka. He has a Master's degree from Murdoch University, Perth.

He lives with his wife and two children in Perth.

Site Design � Sunili Govinnage 1998