In 1992, Michael Ondaatje won the Booker Prize for The English Patient. The next year, he founded the Gratiean Trust and gifted the prize money to institute a literary award in Sri Lanka, the Gratiaen Prize.

The Gratiaen Prize is awarded annually to the best work of literay writing in English by a resident Sri Lankan. The Judges can make their selection from from any work of fiction, poetry, drama or literary memoir either published during the last year or in manuscript. The winner recieves a prize of LKR.100,000.

Ondaatje's act of instituting an award caused a multiplier effect and has resulted in other diverse rewards. The Gratiaen Prize has steadily received more entries from within the English-reading and -writing community in Sri Lanka. In 2005, there were 52 entries. To look at the award-winning books, their writers and their concerns, then, is one way of focusing on contemporary writing in English in the country.

To quote the writer's own words at the first ever presentation of the Gratiaen Award “The Gratiaen prize is an attempt on one level to share the wealth. I was lucky. But more important it is to celebrate and test and trust ourselves. To select and argue about the literature around us. To take it seriously, not just to see it as a jewel or a decoration."

The Gratiaen Trust has always recognised the importance of translations in providing the English reading public across the globe access to the rich literatures available in Sinhala and Tamil. In its continued support of translations, the Trust has now instituted the H.A. I Goonetileke Prize for Translation.

This award, too is funded by Michael Ondaatje and offers the same prize money as the Gratiaen. The Gratiaen Prize will now be offered exclusively for creative work in English. This change allows the Gratiaen Trust to uphold its original mandate of promoting creative writing in English, while providing an equitable environment for translators and creative writers to compete in.

The Gratiaen Trust has always recognised the importance of translations in providing the English reading public across the globe access to the rich literatures available in Sinhala and Tamil. In its continued support of translations, the Trust has now instituted the H.A. I Goonetileke Prize for Translation.