Romesh Gunesekera Books In Order

The Sandglass

Already hailed as one of six books to watch in 1998 Independent, London, The Sandglass is the striking new novel by Sri Lankan author Romesh Gunesekera, a 1994 Booker Prize finalist for his first novel, Reef. Set in London where the Sri Lankan narrator lives, The Sandglass tells the story of two feuding families whose lives are interlinked by the changing fortunes of postcolonial Sri Lanka. In a beautifully constructed work that moves back and forth between two physical and temporal locales, Gunesekera brings to life Prins Ducal and his search for answers about his family’s past in Sri Lanka, including his father’s rise to wealth, rivalry with the Vatunas family, and a suspicious death a mystery that further unfolds upon Prins’s arrival in London for his mother’s funeral. Weaving together themes of memory, exile, and postcolonial upheaval, Gunesekera has written a book Marie Claire calls ‘utterly engaging…
. A heady mix of 1990s London and postwar Sri Lanka.’

Heaven’s Edge

Romesh Gunesekera’s dazzling first novel, Reef, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and The Guardian First Fiction Award. Now he delivers a spellbinding modern odyssey that The Daily Telegraph praises as ‘powerful dense, cadenced, the images perfectly observed.’ In search of a dream, Marc leaves London for the land of his patrimony and family secrets an unnamed island based on the author’s native Sri Lanka once said to be near the edge of heaven but now despoiled by war. There he falls in love with Uva, an eco warrior whose covert farming has made her the target of deadly kidnappers. Marc searches for her among the mystical land’s underground dens of iniquity and ghostly colonial mansions. As gun battles and foot races erupt, he must confront the question his ancestors handled in such different ways: Is violence ever a proper path to freedom? He will discover the answer only once he is reunited with Uva in a utopia that offers a happiness he would defend with his life.

The Match

The Booker Prize nominated author’s brilliant new novel about growing up, growing apart, and finding one’s place in the world.

As a teenager from Sri Lanka, Sunny is living the typical life of an expatriate in 1970s Manila a privileged, carefree existence until one day when the secret behind his mother’s tragic death years earlier is accidentally revealed to him, turning Sunny’s world upside down. His life takes a series of unexpected turns first in England, where he falls in love with the luminous Clara, and later in Sri Lanka, where he returns during a brief lull in the country’s brutal ethnic war.

Reminiscent of V. S. Naipaul in his nuanced treatment of the melancholy of exile, Gunesekera takes the reader on an utterly absorbing journey across the late twentieth century, postcolonial world. Spanning three continents and thirty years, The Match is a ‘beautiful and atmospheric’ Irish Times exploration of the nature of loss and displacement, the search for identity and love, and the possibility, in the end, of redemption and renewal.

Monkfish Moon

The nine haunting stories of Monkfish Moon, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, announce the appearance of an extraordinary writing talent. Gunesekera describes a kind of paradise in which a sudden moment of silence in a city is cause for fear, where civil war disrupts a marriage thousands of miles away, and where ‘building up’ of businesses, homes, relationships is more often than not swiftly and violently brought down.

Reef

‘Exotic,’ ‘spicy,’ and ‘delicious’ are adjectives rarely applied to first novels; however, Reef had critics on both sides of the Atlantic smacking their lips. Reef is the coming of age story of Triton, a talented young chef so committed to pleasing his master’s palate that he is oblivious to the political unrest threatening his Sri Lanka paradise. The London Times called it ‘incessantly pleasurable,’ and Booklist writes, ‘After slowly and reverently savoring Gunesekera’s debut novel, it’s easy to see why this flawless book was shortlisted for the Booker Prize.’