சண்முகலிங்கம்; 15 November 1931 – 17 January 2025), also known by his birth name Mayilvaganam Shanmugalingam, was a Sri Lankan dramatist and playwright that worked primarily in the Tamil language.
[1] Shanmugalingam was born on 15 November 1931 in Jaffna but lived in Bolawatta in the Negombo area, where his father worked as an estate official, until the age of ten.
Shanmugalingam did not initially intend to become a dramatist or a theatrical performer, but befriended popular Indian theatre actor Cho Ramasamy while in India.
[4] Shanmugalingam became a playwright in part because one of the foremost Tamil writers of that time, Sitpi Saravanapavan, was unable to provide their acting troupe with scripts because of his hectic schedule.
[4] He continued to make dramas with themes linking the concepts of home, migration and displacement, which was familiar territory for the people living in Northern parts of Sri Lanka since the 1980s.
His play Man Sumantha Meniyar (Sweat and dust on their shoulders) is linked to the peasants caught in the 40-year Sri Lankan civil war.
[1][2] In July 2016, he translated The Caucasian Chalk Circle by Bertolt Brecht in order to stage the play at the University of Visual and Performing Arts, Colombo.
[6] He was one of the recipients of the Governor's Award in 2004 as part of the Provincial Tamil Literary Festival organized by the Ministry of Education and Cultural Affairs of the Northeast Province.