Shehan Karunatilaka, c/o Metro.co.uk
Shehan Karunatilaka (b. 3.5.1975) is an acclaimed Sri Lankan novelist, who is also an advertising copywriter and a freelance Features writer. He is most noted for his novel, Chinaman, which won the 2008 Gratiaen Prize, the 2011 DSC Prize for South Asian Fiction and the 2012 Commonwealth Book Prize. It was also selected for the “Waterstones 11”, hailed as one of the top debuts in 2011 by the British Publisher Waterstones, and was also shortlisted for the Shakti Bhatt First Novel Prize.
His other work includes The Painter (2000), an unpublished novel which was shortlisted for the 2000 Gratiaen Prize, a collection of 13 short stories titled Short Eats (2016) and his forthcoming novel, Devil Dance.
Chinaman : The Legend of Pradeep Mathew narrates the tale of a 64 year-old dying, alcoholic and retired sportswriter WG Karunasena, who embarks on a journey with a friend to locate Pradeep Mathew, Sri Lanka’s legendary left-arm spin bowler of the 1980’s, who has mysteriously disappeared, and hence forgotten, and erased off the cricketing records. While Karunatilaka’s novel is about cricket, he uses the pretext of a quest to simultaneously unravel larger issues such as racial and social conflict and endemic political corruption in a war-torn Sri Lanka. Thickly plotted, with a vast array of characters, unreliable narrators and structural and narrative dislocations, Karunatilaka blurs fact and fiction, and produces an entertaining post-modern novel. His genius lies in his ability to combine humor and emotion, mystery and sensuality, flippancy and passion, and bring home ironic truths such as “unlike life, sport matters”.
Shehan Karunatilaka was born in Galle and had had an intercontinental upbringing, spending his childhood, teens and university days between Birmingham, Colpetty and New Zealand. He had then moved back to Colombo and London (where he claims to have “spent his youth”) and back to Colombo and Singapore (where he claims to have “grown up”). Shehan had studied English Literature and Business Administration, working as a copywriter in advertising. His career as a features writer includes contracts with The Guardian, Daily Beast, Conde Nast, GQ, National Geographic, and Rolling Stone.
Shehan’s early writing includes diaries which he wrote as a teen and rock songs in his twenties. His rock background was honed by his playing bass for Independent Square, Powercut Circus and One Man Down.
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