Monkfish Moon | Granta

  • Published: 01/09/2011
  • ISBN: 9781847084651
  • Granta Books
  • 144 pages

Monkfish Moon

Romesh Gunesekera

This vivid and haunting short-story collection flows smoothly together to create a masterful portrait of contemporary Sri Lanka; a country of teeming natural beauty, with a society in turmoil. A married couple, living in London, find their marriage strained by fighting in their far-off homeland. A man mourns his brother’s death. A woman regrets the lover she left behind. Between exile and loss, Gunesekera’s characters struggle for the elusive and divided place that they call home. Re-printed by Granta in a beautiful new edition.

Full of the uncertain sadness of exiles and dreamers

Vogue

Tropic lushness burgeons from every cranny of these stories... spice gardens, flame trees, frangipani and hibiscus hedges. But all this merely seems a luscious veil behind which violence and viciousness hide... Graceful and grim, [these stories] constitute careful civilized bulletins on barbarity's reverberations

Sunday Times

Gunesekera's language has a simple surface-but the simplicity is deceptive; his observation is as close as the stare of a voyeur

Independent

The Author

Romesh Gunesekera grew up in Sri Lanka and now lives in London. His debut novel Reef was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the Guardian Fiction Prize in 1994 and won the Yorkshire Post First Work Prize. In 1997 he was awarded the prestigious Premio Mondello award in Italy. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2004. He is the author of numerous novels and short story collections, including Monkfish Moon, Reef, The Sandglass and Noontide Toll, all of which are published by Granta Books.

More about the author →

From the Same Author

Romesh Gunesekera on Granta.com

Essays & Memoir | Granta 149, Europe

Romesh Gunesekera | On Europe

Romesh Gunesekera

‘Identity, it seemed, was not so self-determined after all.’

Essays & Memoir | Granta 149, Europe

Ariel’s Song

Romesh Gunesekera

‘It is to Shakespeare’s pages I return whenever I feel I am sinking. There I can be sure to find a lifeline.’

Essays & Memoir | Granta 125

Mess

Romesh Gunesekera

‘You have to go on the offensive until you smell victory. Then you have the aphrodisiac and can go full tilt.’