In Sinhala, among 67 entries, four are shortlisted – ‘Mahasamy’ by Sepali Mayadunne (Godage Publications), ‘Rankaranduwa’ by Ven. Batuwangala Rahula Thera (Sadeepa Publications), ‘Raja Saha Ghathakaya’ by Visakesa Chandrasekaram (Ravaya Publications) and ‘Mey Rahas Kavuluwen Ebenna’ by Kaushalya Kumarasinghe (Athma Publications).

In English, there are five shortlisted books – ‘Strange Fruit’ by Afdhel Aziz, ‘It’s Not In The Stars’ by Rizwina Morseth de Alwis, ‘The King And The Assassin’ by Visakesa Chandrasekaram, ‘Sinhala Only’ by Manulka Wijesinghe and ‘Rails Run Parallel’ by Ayathurai Santhan.

For Tamil, the judges say that they have not found any book that is qualified to be awarded.

The judges panel for each category comprises Dr. Sunil Wijesiriwardena, Dr. Nirmal Ranjith Devasiri and senior lecturer Harshana Rambukwella for Sinhala, Prof. Nuhuman, senior lecturer Swaminathan Wimal and Prof. Suren Raghavan for Tamil and Shyamali Thudawe, Tissa Jayatilake and Lal Meddawattegedara for English.

All shortlisted books in the three categories will be awarded cash prices of Rs. 100,000 each, while the best three books will get Rs. 500,000.

The Fairway National Literary Awards will take place on 15 January 2016 in Galle, and parallel events will take place in Kandy on 08 and 09 of January, from 14 to 17 of January in Galle and on 23 and 24 of January in Jaffna.