The stories of Romesh Guneskera - all frangipani and hibiscus on the surface, violence and disquiet beneath - present a picture of life in Sri Lanka which, at one level, taps into the tradition of Graham Greene and V.S. Naipaul but is, at the same time, intensely his own. Reef is a love story of sorts, narrated by the houseboy Triton, whose experience of the world is limited to his master's kitchen; Monk- fish Moon is a collection of stories; both are steeped in an intense awareness of Sri Lanka's political and cultural dilemmas, but the shimmering beauty of Gunesekera's prose, combined with the sharpness of his observation, makes them truly universal.
Arminta Wallace