Dissanayake was born to a family of police officers, his father was C. C. "Jungle" Dissanayake a former Senior Deputy Inspector General of Police (SDIG) and his uncle S.A. "Jingle" Dissanayake was a former Inspector General of Police.
However he was prevented from doing so[citation needed] when his father was implicated as one of the leaders of the attempted military coup in 1962.
[2] He did a spell working in the UN and went on to become Sri Lankan ambassador to Indonesia[3] and Egypt.
Since 1975 Dissanayake has published 16 books mostly regarding the politics and history of Sri Lanka.
This Sri Lankan biographical article is a stub.