Karunasena, a cynical, alcoholic sports journalist in his 60s who won the Lankan Sports Journalist of the Year award twice but whose volatile temperament has mostly put him on the wrong side of the media people who matter and who is slowly drinking himself to death. The story’s narrator for the most part is W.G. They could, of course, but would lose out on at least half the sly references that make this book such an absolute delight. I cannot imagine how anyone with either no knowledge of or at least a passing passion for the sport would read this novel. It is an oblique reflection on corrupt Sri Lankan politics, a dissection of its everyday culture, a caustic indictment of the racism its Tamil citizens face at the hands of the Sinhala majority, an insightful psychological study of one man’s headlong foray into self-destruction, a layered relationships drama, a detective thriller, as well as a hilarious collection of musings about any number of things that strike the author’s fancy, including the publishing world that ensures that only works that reaffirm the orientalist gaze - using evocative clichés such as ‘monsoon’ and ‘spice’ in their titles - make it into the market.īut at the same time, this remarkable book is very much about cricket as well. Shehan Karunatilaka’s novel, Chinaman: The Legend of Pradeep Mathew - which won the Michael Ondaatje-established and well-respected Gratiaen Prize (for English writing by a resident Sri Lankan) as far back as 2008 but was only published outside the island nation this year - is about far more than cricket.

But, he added, it’s not really about cricket cricket is merely the window-dressing for this “contender for the title of The Great Sri Lankan Novel”, as a Sunday Times reviewer dubbed it.

As he admits himself, he doesn’t know the difference between a googly and a doosra. When my friend and A Case of Exploding Mangoes author Mohammed Hanif glowingly recommended this debut novel to me, he told me I would enjoy it because it revolves around cricket, a game I frequently obsess about, unlike him.

Chinaman the legend of pradeep mathew