Reef

A single lighted match banishes Triton from his father’s home to the employ of Mister Salgado, a marine biologist obsessed by swamps, sea movements and a Sri Lankan island’s disappearing reef. Stranded in London years later, Triton plumbs the depths of his childhood memories – a period of brewing political, ethical and religious turmoil – and brings us to understand how he has navigated this brave new world, which once lost will haunt him forever.

Romesh Gunesekera grew up in Sri Lanka and now lives in London. His debut novel Reef was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the Guardian Fiction Prize in 1994 and won the Yorkshire Post First Work Prize. In 1997 he was awarded the prestigious Premio Mondello award in Italy. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2004. He is the author of numerous novels and short story collections, including Monkfish Moon, Reef, The Sandglass and Noontide Toll, all of which are published by Granta Books.

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Praise:

"A work of strange, slow-motion, underwater intensity. Put your ear to the page and you can almost hear the ocean whisper" - Independent

"A kind of Asian Tempest, drenched in the unreal, tropical colours of dream" - Guardian

"Dark as one of Graham Greene's tropical undergrowths, funny in the way that Naipaul can be, multi-layered in the manner of Joyce, evocative as Narayan, Reef is a thing of Beauty" - Scotland on Sunday

"A sensuous feast of delight, incessantly pleasurable to read, the writing, like the reef itself, shimmers with constant surprises" - The Times