In his attempts to trace Pradeep, he encounters all sorts of stories from people keen to make money out of his interest. In general, truth proves a difficult thing for W.G. Another is a man called Kuga or Kugarajah, who may be a gangster, a government agent or a senior commander with the Tamil Tigers (or all three). Jonny is one of several characters in the book about whom the truth is unclear. He is assisted by his close friend and neighbour Ari Byrd, and by another friend, an Englishman called Jonny Gilhooley, who works at the British High Commission. Kuranasena is a retired, alcoholic and terminally ill sportswriter who decides, as a last project, to find out what happened to a (fictional) cricket player called Pradeep Mathew, whom he regards as the best spin bowler he ever saw, but who disappeared after playing only 4 Tests for Sri-Lanka. I found my non-fiction reads more appealing and the result was slow progress with this one, until I gave the book the attention it deserved. This is a 400-page novel and I found the first 150 pages or so were, to use an appropriate metaphor, bowled at medium pace. Usually I try to have one work of fiction and one of non-fiction on the go, (and I often have an audiobook underway as well). Its picaresque action, mainly based in Colombo and narrated in short bite-sized chunks, gives a vibrant comic pulse to Sri Lankan life, even though Karunatilaka's portrait of the country is scathing.I’m one of those readers who is in the habit of trying to read more than one book at a time. He mixes humour and violence with the same deftness with which his protagonist mixes drinks ― Observer Chinaman is a debut bristling with energy and confidence, a quixotic novel that is both an elegy to lost ambitions and a paean to madcap dreams ― Sunday Times Chinaman 's free-wheeling, zany tempo is part of its charm too. Kamila Shamsie ― Guardian Carries real weight.a mixture of, say, CLR James, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Fernando Pessoa and Sri Lankan arrack.essential to anyone with a taste for maverick genius ― The Times Karunatilaka has a real lightness of touch. The strength of the book lies in its energy, its mixture of humour and heartwrenching emotion, its twisting narrative, its playful use of cricketing facts and characters, and its occasional blazing anger about what Sri Lanka has done to itself.

Chinaman by shehan