From Village Boy to Global Citizen (Volume 1): The Life Journey of a Journalist

About the Book

From Village Boy to Global Citizen (Volume 1): The Journey of a Journalist is the first of an autobiographical trilogy that tells the story of a rustic lad born and raised in the southern tip of the British colony of Ceylon (now independent Sri Lanka) but left his country at the age of 26 on a geographical “conquest” of the world that turned him metaphorically into a global citizen. Starting his professional career as a journalist for the Daily News, Ceylon’s premier English-language daily, he became a journalism teacher at the age of 32, when he received a doctorate in mass communication. However, he continued practicing journalism as a free-lancer throughout his teaching career in Malaysia, Australia and the United States. Volume 1 unfolds the transition of the author’s life from a village kid to a global journalist and educator. It dramatizes the obstacles he had to overcome, as well as the support he received from his benefactors, in the transition.

About the Author

Shelton A. Gunaratne, Ph.D., is a professor of mass communications emeritus at Minnesota State University Moorhead. He worked as a journalist for the Ceylon Daily News for six years after he graduated with a special degree in economics from the University of Ceylon in 1962. He has taught journalism and writing in Australia, China. Malaysia and the United States. His scholarly works include The Dao of the Press: A Humanocentric Theory (Hampton Press, 2005) and the Handbook of the Media in Asia (Sage, 2000).