Bio


Marlon Ariyasinghe (he/him) is a writer, editor, theatre practitioner and researcher from Sri Lanka. He is a master’s graduate in English from the University of Geneva and received his BA (honors) in English from the University of Peradeniya. He served as the secretary of the Sri Lanka Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies and has organized multiple international literary conferences from 2010-2023. He was the co-editor of Mise en Abyme: International Journal of Comparative Literature and Arts (VIII, Issue 2), a special edition on Sri Lankan Combative Art, Angampora. He was the Senior Assistant Editor at Himal Southasian, a regional magazine of politics and culture. His rapportage has been featured in Reuters, DW, BBC World, WION, The Washington Post, NPR, and other outlets worldwide. Marlon has directed plays for Emmet Theatre Company in Geneva and published a collection of poetry Froteztology in 2011. Marlon’s research interests include Southasian theatre and historiography, performing blackness, Southasian antiblackness, cognition and performance, theatre pedagogy, and decolonizing actor-training methodologies. His research has been published in The Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism, Mise en Abyme: International Journal of Comparative Literature and Arts, and Phoenix: Sri Lanka Journal of English in the Commonwealth.
He tweets at @exfrotezter.

Honors & Awards


  • EDGE Fellow, Office of the Vice Provost for Graduate Education, Stanford University. (2023-2024)

Education & Certifications


  • MA., University of Geneva, English (2016)
  • BA., University of Peradeniya, English (2010)

All Publications


  • Kalu Skin, Kalu Masks: Performing Blackness in Simon Nawagattegama’s Sudu Saha Kalu (1979) Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism Ariyasinghe, M. 2023; 37 (2)

    View details for DOI 10.1353/dtc.2023.a912004

  • “Can We Know the Dancer from the Dance? Embodied Metaphors in Angampora” Mise en Abyme. International Journal of Comparative Literature and Arts Ariyasinghe, M. 2021; VIII (2)
  • “Chinaman" Review Ariyasinghe, M. The Literary Encyclopedia. 2019 ; The Literary Encyclopedia: Sri Lankan Writing and Culture (10.3.4):
  • “The Migrant Writer as Historian: A Glissantian Reading of the Construction of Sri Lankan History in Running in the Family, When Memory Dies and Cinnamon Gardens.” Phoenix: Sri Lanka Journal of English in the Commonwealth Ariyasinghe, M. 2016; XIII-XIV
  • “Expatriate depictions of the village in Estuary and The Lament of the Dhobi Woman” Phoenix: Sri Lanka Journal of English in the Commonwealth Ariyasinghe, M. 2013; X-XI