Ajith Thilakasena (b. 1933) is a Sinhala short story writer, poet, scriptwriter, and critic. He has published over sixteen books and received two national awards, among many other accolades. Thilakasena chose to use colloquial Sinhala in his writing, as opposed to the prescribed written form which had exclusively been considered appropriate for publication. Addressing the complexity of the Sinhala writing system, Thilakasena discussed streamlining certain practices to ease printing – a system he adopted in his own publications.