DB Dhanapala
| Diyogu Badathuruge Dhanapala | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1905 Tissamaharama, Sri Lanka |
| Died | 1971 |
| Nationality | Sri Lankan |
| Alma mater |
Mahinda College, Galle Allahabad University |
| Occupation | Journalist, biographer, art historian |
Diyogu Badathuruge Dhanapala was a pioneering Sri Lankan journalist and author.
Dhanapala was born in Tissamaharama and educated at Mahinda College, Galle and Allahabad University in India. After an early career as a writer and a journalist at the Ceylon Daily News, where he made a name as Janus, in the famous "Blue Page" of the Ceylon Daily News. His pen portraits of the movers and shakers in the then Ceylon made his writing style unique in the country at that time.
After a while his disagreements with the Lake House resulted in him leaving and going on to teaching as the principal of Dharmaloka Vidyalaya Kelaniya. He returned to journalism to found the Lankadeepa, the Sinhala daily which exits to this day as the Sinhala language daily with the largest circulation.
Lankadeepa was unique at the time because it was original journalism in Sinhala. At that time the Dinamina which was the only other Sinhala daily was a translation of the Ceylon Daily News. Lankadeepa had its own reporters, was the first to give name its reporters in the stories they reported. It devised a special Sinhala font, and created a linotype for itself. It had its own photographers and created special pages for cinema, literature at the same time creating first ever Sinhala cartoon strip, Neela.
A note in the back cover of the new edition of Among Those Present, D. B. Dhanapala's most famous book, says although Dhanapala’s Sinhala writing was neither prolific nor unique, he attained an almost cult status for his writing in the Daily News.
Nonetheless, this outstanding writer in English was the doyen of Sinhala journalism who served as Chief Editor of the Lankadeepa which broke new ground by becoming the country’s first Sinhala daily which was not a translation of an English newspaper.
He was also the founder of the Dawasa Group of Newspapers published by M.D. Gunasena & Company under the name and style of Independent Newspapers of Ceylon Limited challenging the supremacy of Lake House during the waning years of the Times of Ceylon.
Dhanapala’s pen portraits were of a mix of people ranging from Anagarika Dharmapala to D.S. and Dudley Senanayake, G.P. Malalalasekara, Oliver Goonetilleke, Herbert Hulugalle, John Kotelawela, Nicholas Attygalle, L.H. Mettananda, S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike and many more
All this gave the Lankadeepa a special identity, which it retains to this day. Mots of the noteworthy journalists in Sinhala were products of the Lankapeepa. This in essence led to D.B.Dhanapala being called the doyen of Sinhala journalism.
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