Rohitha Munasinghe became fascinated with literature at a tender age while being a student at St.Thomas college in Matara, Sri Lanka. Perhaps because Matara was a fortress of communism he was drawn to Russian literature which was in abundance there. And at a very young age he became a communist. Later he moved away from the traditional communist party and became a member of the J.V.P. (People's Liberation Front) In 1987-89 the period known as the "Era of Terror".
When Sri Lanka was without genuine leadership, the state's terror machine came after Rohitha. However he was hunted down by the state and suffered for a whole year in the most inhuman fashion in two torture camps, and later as a detainee in two more camps. While living in the Boossa detention camp the writer within him re-awakened. He created a literary magazine called "Aurora" for the detainees in hall number 7 where he lived. He arrived in France in 1991 and received political asylum.
While living in France he entered the field of journalism once more continuously for four years, Rohitha contributed columns titled "Writing From Paris" and "Two Countries" for Srilankan newspapers "The Sunday Lakbima" and "The Sunday Peramuna". Even now Rohitha writes to Srilankan newspapers about national matters and crisis. "From every obstacle we must be empowered and no one must be discouraged by anything. I dedicated and sacrificed my entire young life for the welfare of my motherland, and my people. Whatever time I have left in my life, I will dedicate it to enrich the Sinhala literature in the best possible manner." This is the noble wish of this writer.
