Description

‘A work of strange, slow-motion, underwater intensity. Put your ear to the page and you can almost hear the ocean whisper’ Independent

A single lighted match banishes Triton from his father’s home to the employ of Mister Salgado, a marine biologist obsessed by swamps, sea movements and a Sri Lankan island’s disappearing reef. Stranded in London years later, Triton plumbs the depths of his childhood memories – a period of brewing political, ethical and religious turmoil – and brings us to understand how he has navigated this brave new world, which once lost will haunt him forever.

Publisher Review

A kind of Asian Tempest, drenched in the unreal, tropical colours of dream * Guardian * Dark as one of Graham Greene’s tropical undergrowths, funny in the way that Naipaul can be, multi-layered in the manner of Joyce, evocative as Narayan, Reef is a thing of Beauty * Scotland on Sunday * A sensuous feast of delight, incessantly pleasurable to read, the writing, like the reef itself, shimmers with constant surprises * The Times * A work of strange, slow-motion, underwater intensity. Put your ear to the page and you can almost hear the ocean whisper * Independent * A book of the deepest human interest and moral poise…Very few contemporary novels combine at so high but natural a pitch qualities of epic strength and luminous intimacy * Independent on Sunday * A big treat to discover Gunesekera’s magical evocation of a Sri Lanka on the brink of destruction — Val Hennessy * Daily Mail * An astute evocation of Sri Lanka as it approached a time of upheaval — Eimear McKeith * Irish Times *