Author: Ashok Ferry
Publisher: Random House India
ISBN: 8184003684
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 188
Book Description
Our Sri Lankan narrator visits his friend Joe in Italy, where Joe attends a special course—in higher (or, shall we say, lower) studies in women. Italians—much like Sri Lankans—live at home through marriage, death, and sometimes even beyond the pale. An accompanying string of fake fiancés and phoney engagements are the backdrop to this delightful collection of darkly humorous tales about Sri Lankans at home and abroad. Long years and many miles away, Colombo’s Father Cruz attempts to rescue a church from parishioners who like to put their donations where others can see them—on large plaques; on the coast, a retired Admiral escapes the tsunami on an antique Dutch cabinet; two childhood sweethearts, in time-honoured Sri Lankan tradition, are married off to strangers. Ashok Ferrey writes about Sri Lanka and its people, wherever they roam, with remarkable acuity. He writes of the West’s effect on Sri Lankans, of its ‘turning them into caricatures, unmistakably genuine but not at all the real thing’. In The Good Little Ceylonese Girl, his second collection of stories, he shows us the reality beyond those feeble sketches, in its full glory.
The Good Little Ceylonese Girl
Author: Ashok Ferry
Publisher: Random House India
ISBN: 8184003684
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 188
Book Description
Our Sri Lankan narrator visits his friend Joe in Italy, where Joe attends a special course—in higher (or, shall we say, lower) studies in women. Italians—much like Sri Lankans—live at home through marriage, death, and sometimes even beyond the pale. An accompanying string of fake fiancés and phoney engagements are the backdrop to this delightful collection of darkly humorous tales about Sri Lankans at home and abroad. Long years and many miles away, Colombo’s Father Cruz attempts to rescue a church from parishioners who like to put their donations where others can see them—on large plaques; on the coast, a retired Admiral escapes the tsunami on an antique Dutch cabinet; two childhood sweethearts, in time-honoured Sri Lankan tradition, are married off to strangers. Ashok Ferrey writes about Sri Lanka and its people, wherever they roam, with remarkable acuity. He writes of the West’s effect on Sri Lankans, of its ‘turning them into caricatures, unmistakably genuine but not at all the real thing’. In The Good Little Ceylonese Girl, his second collection of stories, he shows us the reality beyond those feeble sketches, in its full glory.
Publisher: Random House India
ISBN: 8184003684
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 188
Book Description
Our Sri Lankan narrator visits his friend Joe in Italy, where Joe attends a special course—in higher (or, shall we say, lower) studies in women. Italians—much like Sri Lankans—live at home through marriage, death, and sometimes even beyond the pale. An accompanying string of fake fiancés and phoney engagements are the backdrop to this delightful collection of darkly humorous tales about Sri Lankans at home and abroad. Long years and many miles away, Colombo’s Father Cruz attempts to rescue a church from parishioners who like to put their donations where others can see them—on large plaques; on the coast, a retired Admiral escapes the tsunami on an antique Dutch cabinet; two childhood sweethearts, in time-honoured Sri Lankan tradition, are married off to strangers. Ashok Ferrey writes about Sri Lanka and its people, wherever they roam, with remarkable acuity. He writes of the West’s effect on Sri Lankans, of its ‘turning them into caricatures, unmistakably genuine but not at all the real thing’. In The Good Little Ceylonese Girl, his second collection of stories, he shows us the reality beyond those feeble sketches, in its full glory.
My Sweet Girl
Author: Amanda Jayatissa
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0593335090
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 401
Book Description
WINNER OF THE ITW THRILLER AWARD FOR BEST FIRST NOVEL “My Sweet Girl pushes the boundaries of what a thriller can do.”—The Washington Post “Fiendish [and] full of twists…. Sri Lankan author Amanda Jayatissa keeps us guessing and worrying until the very end.” —The New York Times “A thriller centered on the meaning of identity and all the layers it can have.”—NPR Paloma thought her perfect life would begin once she was adopted and made it to America, but she’s about to find out that no matter how far you run, your past always catches up to you… Ever since she was adopted from a Sri Lankan orphanage, Paloma has had the best of everything—schools, money, and parents so perfect that she fears she'll never live up to them. Now at thirty years old and recently cut off from her parents’ funds, she decides to sublet the second bedroom of her overpriced San Francisco apartment to Arun, who recently moved from India. Paloma has to admit, it feels good helping someone find their way in America—that is until Arun discovers Paloma's darkest secret, one that could jeopardize her own fragile place in this country. Before Paloma can pay Arun off, she finds him face down in a pool of blood. She flees the apartment but by the time the police arrive, there's no body—and no evidence that Arun ever even existed in the first place. Paloma is terrified this is all somehow tangled up in the desperate actions she took to escape Sri Lanka so many years ago. Did Paloma’s secret die with Arun or is she now in greater danger than ever before?
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0593335090
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 401
Book Description
WINNER OF THE ITW THRILLER AWARD FOR BEST FIRST NOVEL “My Sweet Girl pushes the boundaries of what a thriller can do.”—The Washington Post “Fiendish [and] full of twists…. Sri Lankan author Amanda Jayatissa keeps us guessing and worrying until the very end.” —The New York Times “A thriller centered on the meaning of identity and all the layers it can have.”—NPR Paloma thought her perfect life would begin once she was adopted and made it to America, but she’s about to find out that no matter how far you run, your past always catches up to you… Ever since she was adopted from a Sri Lankan orphanage, Paloma has had the best of everything—schools, money, and parents so perfect that she fears she'll never live up to them. Now at thirty years old and recently cut off from her parents’ funds, she decides to sublet the second bedroom of her overpriced San Francisco apartment to Arun, who recently moved from India. Paloma has to admit, it feels good helping someone find their way in America—that is until Arun discovers Paloma's darkest secret, one that could jeopardize her own fragile place in this country. Before Paloma can pay Arun off, she finds him face down in a pool of blood. She flees the apartment but by the time the police arrive, there's no body—and no evidence that Arun ever even existed in the first place. Paloma is terrified this is all somehow tangled up in the desperate actions she took to escape Sri Lanka so many years ago. Did Paloma’s secret die with Arun or is she now in greater danger than ever before?
Love in the Tsunami
Author: Ashok Ferrey
Publisher: Penguin Books India
ISBN: 0143416456
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 250
Book Description
Publisher: Penguin Books India
ISBN: 0143416456
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 250
Book Description
Colpetty People
Author: Ashok Ferry
Publisher: Random House India
ISBN: 818400365X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 183
Book Description
In this extraordinary debut, Ashok Ferry chronicles, in a gently probing voice, the journeys of characters seeking something beyond the barriers of nations and generations. His tales of social-climbing Sri Lankans, of the pathos of immigration, of rich people with poor taste, of ice-cream karma, of innocent love, eternity, and more take us to Colombo’s nouveau riche, hoity-toity returnees, ladies with buttery skin and square fingernails, old-fashioned aristocrats, and the poor mortals trapped between them. Ferry’s stories comprise characters that are ‘serious and fine and upstanding, and infinitely dull’, but also others like young John-John, who loses his childhood somewhere ‘high up in the air between Asmara and Rome’; the maid, Agnes of God, whose mango-sucking teeth ‘fly out at you like bats out of the mouth of a cave’; Ashoka, the immigrant who embodies his Sri Lankan identity only on the bus ride between home and work; and Professor Jayaweera who finds sterile freedoms caged in the ‘unbending, straight lines of Western Justice’. Absurd, sad, scathing and generous, but mostly wickedly funny, Colpetty People presents modern Sri Lankans as they navigate worlds between Ceylon and the West.
Publisher: Random House India
ISBN: 818400365X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 183
Book Description
In this extraordinary debut, Ashok Ferry chronicles, in a gently probing voice, the journeys of characters seeking something beyond the barriers of nations and generations. His tales of social-climbing Sri Lankans, of the pathos of immigration, of rich people with poor taste, of ice-cream karma, of innocent love, eternity, and more take us to Colombo’s nouveau riche, hoity-toity returnees, ladies with buttery skin and square fingernails, old-fashioned aristocrats, and the poor mortals trapped between them. Ferry’s stories comprise characters that are ‘serious and fine and upstanding, and infinitely dull’, but also others like young John-John, who loses his childhood somewhere ‘high up in the air between Asmara and Rome’; the maid, Agnes of God, whose mango-sucking teeth ‘fly out at you like bats out of the mouth of a cave’; Ashoka, the immigrant who embodies his Sri Lankan identity only on the bus ride between home and work; and Professor Jayaweera who finds sterile freedoms caged in the ‘unbending, straight lines of Western Justice’. Absurd, sad, scathing and generous, but mostly wickedly funny, Colpetty People presents modern Sri Lankans as they navigate worlds between Ceylon and the West.
A Disobedient Girl
Author: Ru Freeman
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 143912356X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 461
Book Description
SHE LOVED FINE THINGS, AND SHE HAD NO DOUBT THAT SHE DESERVED THEM. . . . Young Latha knows that she was not meant to be a servant. She was born for finer things, like the rose-smelling soap she steals from the family she has worked for since she was five, or the glasses of fresh lime juice she helps herself to after a long day. But the hard truth is that her life is tied to Thara, the family’s spoiled daughter, and for the next thirty years they grow up bound by love, betrayal, resentment, and an impossible secret. Then there is Biso, a devoted mother of three, who risks everything to escape from her tyrannical husband. Though her journey begins with hope, she navigates a disastrous path that ultimately binds her story to Latha and Thara’s in the most unexpected and heartbreaking way. Set against the volatile backdrop of class and prejudice in Sri Lanka, A Disobedient Girl is a bold and deeply moving tale about the will to survive and the incredible power of the human spirit to transcend the unforgiving sweep of tragedy.
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 143912356X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 461
Book Description
SHE LOVED FINE THINGS, AND SHE HAD NO DOUBT THAT SHE DESERVED THEM. . . . Young Latha knows that she was not meant to be a servant. She was born for finer things, like the rose-smelling soap she steals from the family she has worked for since she was five, or the glasses of fresh lime juice she helps herself to after a long day. But the hard truth is that her life is tied to Thara, the family’s spoiled daughter, and for the next thirty years they grow up bound by love, betrayal, resentment, and an impossible secret. Then there is Biso, a devoted mother of three, who risks everything to escape from her tyrannical husband. Though her journey begins with hope, she navigates a disastrous path that ultimately binds her story to Latha and Thara’s in the most unexpected and heartbreaking way. Set against the volatile backdrop of class and prejudice in Sri Lanka, A Disobedient Girl is a bold and deeply moving tale about the will to survive and the incredible power of the human spirit to transcend the unforgiving sweep of tragedy.
Dressing Up with Archchi: A Diverse Picture Book about Playtime with Grandma
Author: Nadishka Aloysius
Publisher: Nadishka Aloysius
ISBN: 9786249823303
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 26
Book Description
Enjoy a colourful afternoon of fun and frolic with a spirited youngster as she slays monsters and demonstrates that girls can be whatever they want to be - they only need an active imagination and the love and support of a wonderful grandmother! This charming picture book is about a little Sri Lankan girl who loves playing dress up with her Archchi (grandma in Sinhalese). She selects a colourful sari, decorates her hair, and puts on her (non-toxic) makeup with care. But she is no ordinary Asian Princess. My brother has come to collect me. Monsters and maidens we play. This Princess fights her own battles. She's not afraid. No way! Illustrated in vibrant colours this paperback also includes three activity pages and a DIY Jigsaw Puzzle! So, come spend and enjoyable evening Dressing Up With Archchi!
Publisher: Nadishka Aloysius
ISBN: 9786249823303
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 26
Book Description
Enjoy a colourful afternoon of fun and frolic with a spirited youngster as she slays monsters and demonstrates that girls can be whatever they want to be - they only need an active imagination and the love and support of a wonderful grandmother! This charming picture book is about a little Sri Lankan girl who loves playing dress up with her Archchi (grandma in Sinhalese). She selects a colourful sari, decorates her hair, and puts on her (non-toxic) makeup with care. But she is no ordinary Asian Princess. My brother has come to collect me. Monsters and maidens we play. This Princess fights her own battles. She's not afraid. No way! Illustrated in vibrant colours this paperback also includes three activity pages and a DIY Jigsaw Puzzle! So, come spend and enjoyable evening Dressing Up With Archchi!
The Unmarriageable Man
Author: Ashok Ferrey
Publisher: Penguin Random House India Private Limited
ISBN: 9390914639
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 209
Book Description
Sanjay de Silva lives in Colombo, under the thumb of a controlling Sri Lankan father, having lost his English mother at an early age. When his father is diagnosed with cancer, he feels the ground shifting under his feet, the balance of power realigning. Though it is something he has dreamed of all his life, he is uneasy when it happens. Learning that he is entitled to live in England-thanks to his half-English parentage-he arrives in south London. It is 1980, the start of the glorious blue-rinsed Thatcher years, when every girl looks like Princess Diana but not every boy looks like Prince Charles. He meets and falls in love with a fellow Sri Lankan, Janine, who is old enough to be his mother and famous within the acid-tongued Sri Lankan community as 'a hooker of the very highest class, with royal connections'. Sanjay manages to buy an old wreck of a house in Brixton and succeeds, against all odds, in converting it into two flats. But all is not well with that house. At night there are voices . . . This is the story of south London's first Asian builder who in eight years developed and sold eighty-four flats, cashing in his winnings just before the crash of 1988. But at its heart it is about grief: how each of us copes in our inimitable way with the hidden mysteries of family and the loss of loved ones. Because, as Sanjay is about to find out, grief is only the transmutation of love, of the very same chemical composition-liquid, undistilled-the one inevitably turning to the other like ice to water.
Publisher: Penguin Random House India Private Limited
ISBN: 9390914639
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 209
Book Description
Sanjay de Silva lives in Colombo, under the thumb of a controlling Sri Lankan father, having lost his English mother at an early age. When his father is diagnosed with cancer, he feels the ground shifting under his feet, the balance of power realigning. Though it is something he has dreamed of all his life, he is uneasy when it happens. Learning that he is entitled to live in England-thanks to his half-English parentage-he arrives in south London. It is 1980, the start of the glorious blue-rinsed Thatcher years, when every girl looks like Princess Diana but not every boy looks like Prince Charles. He meets and falls in love with a fellow Sri Lankan, Janine, who is old enough to be his mother and famous within the acid-tongued Sri Lankan community as 'a hooker of the very highest class, with royal connections'. Sanjay manages to buy an old wreck of a house in Brixton and succeeds, against all odds, in converting it into two flats. But all is not well with that house. At night there are voices . . . This is the story of south London's first Asian builder who in eight years developed and sold eighty-four flats, cashing in his winnings just before the crash of 1988. But at its heart it is about grief: how each of us copes in our inimitable way with the hidden mysteries of family and the loss of loved ones. Because, as Sanjay is about to find out, grief is only the transmutation of love, of the very same chemical composition-liquid, undistilled-the one inevitably turning to the other like ice to water.
The Sweet and Simple Kind
Author: Yasmine Gooneratne
Publisher: Abacus
ISBN: 9780349121741
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
Loyalty (and the damnable lack of it in his wife) was the thought uppermost in the mind of Sir Andrew Millbanke as he looked down at Lady Alexandra's dead body, spread-eagled on the paved pathway of the Residency.' And so begins an engrossing and dramatic family drama, set against the backdrop of Ceylon's bumpy evolution into Sri Lanka, as the Wijesinha clan struggle to balance their staunch political ambition against the ignominy of an embarrassing family scandal. And when two young family members, cousins Tsunami and Latha, meet and become firm friends no one can guess that their triumphant friendship will be played out over the passing years against both the best and the worst the newly independent Sri Lanka can offer as these two smart and Westernised young women pursue their own personal freedoms.
Publisher: Abacus
ISBN: 9780349121741
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
Loyalty (and the damnable lack of it in his wife) was the thought uppermost in the mind of Sir Andrew Millbanke as he looked down at Lady Alexandra's dead body, spread-eagled on the paved pathway of the Residency.' And so begins an engrossing and dramatic family drama, set against the backdrop of Ceylon's bumpy evolution into Sri Lanka, as the Wijesinha clan struggle to balance their staunch political ambition against the ignominy of an embarrassing family scandal. And when two young family members, cousins Tsunami and Latha, meet and become firm friends no one can guess that their triumphant friendship will be played out over the passing years against both the best and the worst the newly independent Sri Lanka can offer as these two smart and Westernised young women pursue their own personal freedoms.
Stay, Daughter
Author: Yasmin Azad
Publisher: Swift Press
ISBN: 1800751400
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 222
Book Description
We did not stay in our houses. Not in the way our grandmothers had, or our mothers. We went out a little more and veiled ourselves a little less. Some of us longed for more learning and dreamed about leaving home to get it. The elders shook their heads and cautioned: too much education could ruin a girl's future. To be a Muslim girl in the Sri Lanka of the 50s and 60s was to have to stay inside once you hit puberty; where even a glimpse of flesh was forbidden; and where things were done the way they'd always been done. But Yasmin Azad's family is full of love, humour and larger-than-life characters, despite the strictures half of them were under. And almost despite himself, Yasmin's father allows her an education – an education that would open the whole world to her, even as it risked closing her off from those she was closest to. An extraordinary portrait of a time and a community in the midst of profound change, Stay, Daughter vividly evokes a now-vanished world, but its central clash – that of tradition and modernity – is one that will always be with us.
Publisher: Swift Press
ISBN: 1800751400
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 222
Book Description
We did not stay in our houses. Not in the way our grandmothers had, or our mothers. We went out a little more and veiled ourselves a little less. Some of us longed for more learning and dreamed about leaving home to get it. The elders shook their heads and cautioned: too much education could ruin a girl's future. To be a Muslim girl in the Sri Lanka of the 50s and 60s was to have to stay inside once you hit puberty; where even a glimpse of flesh was forbidden; and where things were done the way they'd always been done. But Yasmin Azad's family is full of love, humour and larger-than-life characters, despite the strictures half of them were under. And almost despite himself, Yasmin's father allows her an education – an education that would open the whole world to her, even as it risked closing her off from those she was closest to. An extraordinary portrait of a time and a community in the midst of profound change, Stay, Daughter vividly evokes a now-vanished world, but its central clash – that of tradition and modernity – is one that will always be with us.
Funny Boy
Author: Shyam Selvadurai
Publisher: McClelland & Stewart
ISBN: 1551997193
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 257
Book Description
In this remarkable debut novel, a boy’s bittersweet passage to maturity and sexual awakening is set against escalating political tensions in Sri Lanka, during the seven years leading up to the 1983 riots. Arjie Chelvaratnam is a Tamil boy growing up in an extended family in Colombo. It is through his eyes that the story unfolds and we meet a delightful, sometimes eccentric cast of characters. Arjie’s journey from the luminous simplicity of childhood days into the more intricately shaded world of adults – with its secrets, its injustices, and its capacity for violence – is a memorable one, as time and time again the true longings of the human heart are held against the way things are.
Publisher: McClelland & Stewart
ISBN: 1551997193
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 257
Book Description
In this remarkable debut novel, a boy’s bittersweet passage to maturity and sexual awakening is set against escalating political tensions in Sri Lanka, during the seven years leading up to the 1983 riots. Arjie Chelvaratnam is a Tamil boy growing up in an extended family in Colombo. It is through his eyes that the story unfolds and we meet a delightful, sometimes eccentric cast of characters. Arjie’s journey from the luminous simplicity of childhood days into the more intricately shaded world of adults – with its secrets, its injustices, and its capacity for violence – is a memorable one, as time and time again the true longings of the human heart are held against the way things are.