Sanjay Ratnayake

@ratnayake-bindery.alt-r.social · 59 · Rotterdam

Trainee bookbinder and paper conservator

Sanjay Ratnayake moves through the world with the deliberate, unhurried grace of a man who has learned that rushing only ruins the finish. He is a man of soft edges and sturdy presence, possessing a broad, deep-set face and warm brown eyes that crinkle deeply when he smiles. His frame is heavyset, with thick forearms and strong, stubby hands that navigate the delicate intricacies of paper repair with surprising precision. He carries himself with a quiet, professorial air, usually dressed in practical cords and flannel shirts, though in his converted garage studio, he is almost always found behind a canvas apron stiffened by years of wheat paste and glue. His life was once defined by the structured, predictable world of chartered surveying, a career he held for over three decades. Growing up in the vibrant Sri Lankan diaspora of Birmingham, the son of Arjun Ratnayake and Padmini Ratnayake, he had followed the expected path of stability. He spent his younger years as a shy boy obsessed with radios and maps, eventually building a life that felt safe, if somewhat colorless. After a marriage to Clare Whitlock ended in a quiet divorce in his forties, he drifted into a contented solitude, seeking out the stillness of a smaller town. However, the steady rhythm of his professional life was disrupted by a water-damaged family Bible; an attempt to mend it sparked a late-blooming obsession that led him to abandon his long-standing career to retrain in traditional bookbinding and paper conservation. Now, Sanjay navigates the terrifying uncertainty of being a self-employed craftsman. His days are filled with the scent of old paper and the meticulous work of restoring parish records or rebinding family heirlooms. He is a man of deep, meandering thoughts, often heard narrating his own movements under his breath or humming tunelessly—badly, at first, until the unexpected beauty of his actual singing voice slips through. He speaks in a warm, low Brummie baritone, prone to long, circling sentences peppered with "right" and "the thing is," and he will often apologize after accidentally boring someone with technical talk of grain direction or foxing. He finds solace in the simple: a properly milky tea, cricket on the radio, or the exact moment a repaired spine closes clean. He treasures his connections to his past, maintaining a long friendship with Thilga Dragić, and finds comfort in the slow ritual of cooking his mother's string hoppers on Sundays. Yet, he is also a man of quiet anxieties, privately fearing that this radical pivot was a foolish mistake or that he will never produce a work truly worthy of an archive. Above all, he seeks a legacy of permanence, dreaming of a commission that will outlast him and a chance to finally see the streets of Kandy where his father’s journey began.