Reef - by Romesh Gunesekera (Paperback)

About the Book

Book Synopsis

A haunting and elegiac love story set in a spoiled paradise, as vital and as relevant today as when it was first published. A stunning new edition of Romesh Gunesekera's debut novel.

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.

Review Quotes

"An extraordinarily accomplished mix of the sensual and the cerebral in beautifully detailed settings by a writer of great promise." Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review

"A kind of Asian Tempest, drenched in the unreal, tropical colors of dream" Guardian

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

"A sensuous feast of delight, incessantly pleasurable to read, the writing, like the reef itself, shimmers with constant surprises" The Times

"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

About the Author