Romesh gunesekera biography definition
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Gunesekera, Romesh 1954-
PERSONAL:
Born 1954, in Colombo, Sri Lanka; children: two daughters.
ADDRESSES:
Home—London, England.
CAREER:
Novelist and short-story writer. Served as writer-in-residence in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Denmark.
MEMBER:
Fellow of the Royal gemenskap of Literature, 2004.
AWARDS, HONORS:
Arts Council Writers' Bursary, 1991; finalist, David Higham Prize, 1992, Commonwealth Writers' Regional Prize, 1993, and Notable Book of the Year, New York Times, 1993, all for Monkfish Moon; finalist for Booker Prize, finalist for Guardian Fiction Prize, Best First Work award, Yorkshire Post, all 1994, and Premio Mondello, 1997, all for Reef; nominated for New röst Award; BBC Asia Award for Achievement in Writing and Literature, 1998.
WRITINGS:
Monkfish Moon (short stories), Granta Books (London, England), 1992, New Press (New York, NY), 1992, Riverhead Books (New York, NY), 1996.
Reef (novel), New Press (New York, NY), 1995.
The Sandglass (nove
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Romesh Gunesekera: The decisive moment
"Timing is the thing," begins Romesh Gunesekera's new novel, The Match. It is somewhat surprising, therefore, when the author fails to make an appearance at the allotted hour of our interview. He was supposed to have been here, at his publisher's Soho Square offices, half an hour ago.
For me, the timing is fortuitous. I've had a filling replaced in the morning, and my anaesthetised mouth is still incapable of forming recognisable words. By the time he finally bustles apologetically though the door, my powers of speech are miraculously restored.
He has, it turns out, been trapped on the Tube. The drawstring on his rucksack became caught in the closing doors, and it took him some time to tug his way free.
Life has hereby delivered an able exposition of the themes of Gunesekera's new novel: the significance of good timing, the frailty of verbal communication, the ramifications of cutting yourself off, and the importance of knowing what to hang
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Biography
Romesh Gunesekera was born in Sri Lanka in 1954, moving to London in 1972. He grew up speaking both English and Sinhala. Gunesekera won the Liverpool College Poetry Prize in 1972, the Rathborne Prize in Philosophy in 1976, and the first prize in the Peterloo Open Poetry Competition in 1988. Gunesekera’s first book, Monkfish Moon, was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year while his first novel, Reef, was shortlisted for the 1994 Booker Prize.
Gunesekera’s first book, Monkfish Moon, is a collection of stories that provide a narrative of the political upheaval in Sri Lanka. The first story, “A House in the Country,” follows Ray, who returns to Sri Lanka from England, and Siri, Ray’s houseboy. Ray’s returns to Sri Lanka at a very confusing period in Sri Lanka’s history (See Nationalism). In the later story “Baltik,” a husband and wife find themselves struggling to keep their marriage intact. Because Nalini is Sinhalese and her husband, Tiru, is Tamil, they have r