A Tribute to a literary genius : Carl Muller bids farewell

Born on the 22nd of October 1935, Carl Muller is a Sri Lankan writer, poet, and journalist best known for his trilogy about Burghers in Sri Lanka: The Jam Fruit Tree, Yakada Yaka and Once Upon A Tender Time. He has won Gratiaen Awards for The Jam Fruit Tree in 1993 and a State Literary Award for his historical novel, Children of the Lion. Veteran journalist and writer Carl Muller was honoured by the State, being bestowed with the title ‘Kala Keerthi’ Muller was born in Kandy, the eldest in a family of thirteen. He studied in College, Colombo and he left home at the age of eighteen to join the Royal Ceylon Navy as a signalman. He went on to briefly serve in the Ceylon Army and later joined the Colombo Port Commission as a signals officer. Next, Muller tried his hand at journalism and eventually marrying Sortain Harris and leaving Sri Lanka in order to work at newspapers in the Middle East. In a statement on Facebook, his son Jeremy Muller said "At two o’clock on the morning of the 2nd of December 2019, Carl Muller breathed his last." He added "He had been suffering from dementia that was getting progressively worse during his last years. " The statement read "My father, Carl Muller accomplished much in his life. He was a seaman, then a military man." It added "He was a musician; played the piano by ear and had a gift for being able to play anything that he heard. He had a wicked sense of humour and a rare gift of writing satire and comedy. He was prolific in his writing, words were always his friends, and he could string them together to tell stories or expound facts as he saw fit." Carl Muller once joined Channel One MTV on our program Nothing Personal. His final rites were performed on the 2nd of December at the Mahaiyawa Cemetery.