Wimal Dissanayake

Wimal Dissanayake (6 September 1939 – 7 August 2026) was a Sri Lankan creative writer, literary critic and leading scholar in Asian cinema and Asian communication theory. Both of his parents were school teachers. He attended high school at Trinity College, Kandy. and a professor of cultural studies at the University of Hong Kong. He studied Asian classical teachings, examined Asian rituals, beliefs, and norms, and developed Asian communication theories. He is also considered as a progressive public intellectual who early on introduced postmodernism to Sinhalese readers. He began publishing columns on postmodern thought in Sinhalese newspapers in the 1990s. Raj Kapoor's Films: Harmony of Discourses, Sinhala Novel and the Public Sphere (2009), Self and Colonial Desire: Travel Writings of V. S. Naipaul (1993) and Sholay, A Cultural Reading (1992) are regarded as some of his most notable works.

In 2000, Dissanayake co-authored a book titled, Profiling Sri Lankan Cinema, with Ashley Ratnavibhushana. The book focused on the growth trajectory of the Sri Lankan cinema. In 2004, Dissanayake also published Indian Popular Cinema: A Narrative of Cultural Change with K. Moti Goulsing based on their analysis of the nine decades of Indian cinema, which had seen its own fair share of lows and highs. The book examined the impact of Indian popular cinema on Indians on the continent and in the diaspora and discussed how Indian cinema captured international attention beyond the Indian audience. The book highlighted six major influences that have shaped Indian popular cinema.

Dissanayake was the Editor-in-Chief of the East-West Film Journal, published by the Institute of Culture and Communication at the East-West Center, from 1986 to 1994. He also maintained a very close association with the Hawaii International Film Festival since its inception in 1981, and the longstanding association was ended in 1995 after 14 years.

Death Dissanayake died in Hawaii on 7 August 2026, at the age of 86.

Awards Dissanayake received the Sahithya Rathna Award from the Government of Sri Lanka at the 2012 State Literary Festival. He was conferred with an Honorary Doctor of Letters from the University of Kelaniya.

On 4 December 2021, Dissanayake was conferred with the Asian Communication Award for Disruptive Inquiry by the Asian Media Information and Communication Centre (AMIC). He received the award in the virtual edition of the 28th AMIC Annual Conference, where the award winners were officially announced.

Publications Dissanayake, W. (Ed.). (1988). Cinema and cultural identity: Reflections on films from Japan, India, and China. University Press of America. Dissanayake, W. (Ed.). (1993). Melodrama and Asian cinema. Cambridge University Press. Dissanayake, W. (Ed.). (1994). Colonialism and nationalism in Asian cinema. Indiana University Press. Dissanayake, W. (Ed.). (1996). Narratives of agency: Self-making in China, India, and Japan. University of Minnesota Press. Dissanayake, W. (Ed.). (2022). Communication theory: The Asian perspective (2nd ed.). Asian Media Information and Communication Center. Dissanayake, W., & Said, A. R. b M. (Eds.). (1983). Communications research and cultural values. Asian Mass Communication Research and Information Center. Ames, R. T., & Dissanayake, W. (Eds.). (1996). Self and deception: A cross-cultural philosophical enquiry. State University of New York Press. Ames, R. T., Dissanayake, W., & Kasulis, T. P. (Eds.). (1994). Self as person in Asian theory and practice. State University of New York Press. Ames, R. T., Kasulis, T. P., & Dissanayake, W. (Eds.). (1998). Self as image in Asian theory and practice. State University of New York Press. Arno, A., & Dissanayake, W. (Eds.). (1984). The news media in national and international conflict. Westview Press. Gokulsing, M. K., & Dissanayake, W. (Eds.). (2013). Routledge handbook of Indian cinema. Routledge. Guneratne, A. R., & Dissanayake, W. (Eds.). (2003). Rethinking third cinema. Routledge. Kasulis, T. P., Ames, R. T., & Dissanayake, W. (Eds.). (1993). Self as body in Asian theory and practice. State University of New York Press. Wang, G., & Dissanayake, W. (Eds.). (1984). Continuity and change in communication systems: An Asian perspective. Ablex. Wilson, R., & Dissanayake, W. (Eds.). (1996). Global/local: Cultural production and the transnational imaginary. Duke University Press.