Noontide Toll: Stories
Books / Hardcover
ISBN: 1620970201 / Publisher: The New Press, September 2014
Collects interconnected stories about the escapades of Vasantha, a driver who, as he carries his fares around Sri Lanka, begins to understand the problems that afflict him and his country.
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<b>In postwar Sri Lanka, a hired driver observes his passengers—tourists, soldiers, businessmen, and others—in these linked stories by a “master storyteller” (<i>The New York Times</i>).</b><br> <br> Vasantha retired early, bought himself a van, and now works as a driver for hire. As he drives through Sri Lanka, carrying aid workers, entrepreneurs, and visiting families; meeting lonely soldiers and eager hoteliers, he engages them with self-deprecating wit and folksy wisdom—while revealing to us their uncertain lives with piercing insight.<br> <br> On his journey from the army camps in northern Jaffna to the moonlit ramparts of Galle, in the south, Vasantha slowly discovers the depth of his country’s troubles—as well as his own—while catching a glimmer of the promise the future might hold.<br> <br> From the Booker Prize–shortlisted author of <i>Reef</i> comes a collection of “gracefully crafted road stories” that draws a potent portrait of postwar Sri Lanka and the ghosts of civil war (<i>The</i><i>Guardian</i>).<br> <br><b>Praise for Romesh Gunesekera</b><br> “<i>Monkfish Moon</i> strikes the reader like a hammer blow. . . . Gunesekera’s subtly erotic prose animates Sri Lanka’s natural luxuriance, veined with menace.” —<i>Voice Literary Supplement</i><br>
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