The Sherlock Holmes stories were written by Conan Doyle who was able to take readers to another dimension. There is no doubt, the stories are very interesting. Millions around the world hug the books warmly. This brings fame and wealth to Conan Doyle.Recent years these books were translated into Sinhala by Chandana Mendis. Though some translators had already translated Sherlock stories into Sinhala It was neither famous nor successful. However translations done by Chandana Mendis were very successful and were able to attract many readers throughout the Sri lanka. Reactions from readers were very encouragable so that Chandana Mendis started translating other Sherlock Holmes stories too. I and my nost of friends are also big fans Sherlock Holms and we are still in a taste to read them. Chandana Mendis must be thanked for his excellence skills in translating which are able to convey the enthusiasm as original English books to Sri lankan readers. No doubt his work was well done. The effort of Chandana Mendis to introduce new charactors of international detective literature to Sri Lanka was very successful. However there are few questions remained on my mind that I wish to disccuss in next paragraph.
There were 60 stories (if not exactly 60, it should number around 60) written by Conan Doyle and the LIST OF BOOKS can be found on Wikipedia. My question is there are morre than 60 Sinhala transalations of stories of Sherlock Holmes? If there were only 60 books were written by Conan Dolye how Chandana Mendis published more than 60?. When I forwaded this question to my friends some told me those are the stories were orginally written by Chandana Mendis. But when I searched on the internet, it was found that many other authors used charactors of Conan Dolys's stories to create their own stories. I found one of such book and photo is published below and it is sure that there are many more books like this.
I guess these are the stories which might be translated by Chandana Mendis. However in the preface of the books it was mentioned that these stories were taken from the documents in the trunk belonged to Dr. Watson. This made most readers upset. It was better if Chandana Mendis could mention from where he took the story. On the other hand he should have mentioned it because real authors of those particular stories must be respected. It was very funny that Chandana Mendis stated that he found trunk of Dr. Watson. I wonder why anyother couldn't find that trunk which was in a store for decades. I must mentioned another point in my article. I think everybody cannot be another Conan Dolye. The writing style of Conan Dolye was unique to him and nobody was able to imitate his writing style. Actually his situation can be described as some sort of intellectual property stealing. If someone is real writer he should be able to address readers in a unique way to him. But instead of being creative, copying some others story is not so good. This is my opinion and your comments are highly appreciated.
