Chinaman-The Legend of Pradeep Mathew

Retired sportswriter W.G. Karunasena is dying. He will spend his final months drinking arrack upsetting his wife ignoring his son and tracking down Pradeep S. Mathew an elusive spin bowler he considers 'the greatest cricketer to walk the earth'.On his quest to find this unsung genius W.G. uncovers a coach with six fingers a secret bunker below a famous stadium an LTTE warlord and startling truths about Sri Lanka cricket and himself.Ambitious playful and strikingly original Chinaman is a novel about cricket and Sri Lanka and of Sri Lanka through its cricket. Hailed by the Gratiaen Prize judges as 'one of the most imaginative works of contemporary Sri Lankan fiction' it is an astounding book. Review Captures Sri Lanka's enduring cricket love affair -- Charles Haviland BBCA crazy ambidextrous delight -- Micheal OndaatjeAs close to a masterpiece as anything to have come out of South Asia in recent years -- India TodayA brilliant debut lays bare Sri Lankas soul through a made-up sporting hero . . . incredibly funny -- Tishani Doshi ObserverAn accomplished debut with excellently drawn characters cheeky dialogue well-crafted atmosphere and emotive depth -- Gautam Pemmaraju TimeOut!Match-fixers terrorists dodgy government officials and everything you need to know about cricket in Sri Lanka -- GuardianCapacious novel discursive learned with snappy one-liners plotted like a good thriller and as compulsively readable -- New StatesmanAn important book -- Partha Basu Telegraph About the Author Shehan Karunatilaka is a Sri Lankan writer.Chinaman is his first book which won the Commonwealth Book Prize the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature and the Gratiaen Prize and was shortlisted for the Shakti Bhatt First Book Prize.