Shehan Karunatilaka was born in Colombo, Sri Lanka, He grew up in Colombo, studied in New Zealand and has lived and worked in London, Amsterdam and Singapore. Before publishing his debut novel, he worked in advertising at McCann, Iris and BBDO, and has also writes features for The Guardian, Newsweek, Rolling Stone, GQ, National Geographic, Conde Nast, Wisden, The Cricketer and the Economic Times. He has played bass with Sri Lankanrock bands Independent Square and Powercut Circus and the Brass Monkey Band. He was educated at S. Thomas' Preparatory School, Kollupitiya, Sri Lanka, Wanganui Collegiate School and Massey University, Palmerston North.
Novels
His first manuscript, The Painter, was shortlisted for the Gratiaen Prize in 2000, but was never published.
Chinaman
His debut novel, , uses cricket as a device to write about Sri Lankan history. It tells the story of an alcoholic journalist's quest to track down a missing Sri Lankan cricketer of the 1980s.
Plot
The story is described as “part-tragedy, part-comedy, part-mystery and part-drunken-memoir.” It is set in Sri Lanka in 1999, fresh after a world cup victory and in the throes of a civil war that will continue for another decade. Most of the action takes place “on Colombo’s streets, at cricket matches, in strange houses and in dodgy bars.” The story's narrator is retired sports journalist, WG Karunasena, who has done little with his 64 years, other than drink arrack and watch Sri Lankan cricket. When informed by doctors of his liver problems, WG decides to track down the greatest thing he has ever seen, Pradeep Mathew, left-arm spinner for Sri Lanka during the late 80s.
Awards
The book was critically hailed, winning many awards. On 21 May 2012, Chinaman was announced as the regional winner for Asia of the Commonwealth Book Prize and went on to win the overall Commonwealth Book Prize announced on 8 June. It also won the 2012 DSC Prize for South Asian Literature, and the 2008 Gratiaen Prize. Published to great acclaim in India and the UK, the book was one of the Waterstones 11 selected by British bookseller Waterstones as one of the top debuts of 2011 and was also shortlisted for the Shakti Bhatt First Novel Prize. In 2015, a Sinhala language translation by Dileepa Abeysekara was published as Chinaman: Pradeep Mathewge Cricket Pravadaya. In 2019, it was voted the 2nd greatest cricket book ever by Wisden.
''Chats With The Dead''
His second novel, Chats With The Dead, is a black comedy about ghosts and was published in 2020 by Pengun India. Set against the backdrop of the civil war, the story chronicles the challenges and ethical dilemmas of a war photographer tasked to solve his own murder mystery. Chats with the Dead is a story of a ghost trapped navigating the afterlife and coming to terms with his life, his work, his relationships and his death. Structured as a whodunit, the story follows renegade war photographer Maali Almeida, who is tasked with solving his own murder. Embroiled in red tape, memories of war, his own ethical dilemmas, and his awkward relationship with his mother, his official girlfriend and his secret boyfriend Maali is constantly interrupted by the overly chatty dead folks breezing through the afterlife, as he struggles to unravel his own death. The author set the book in 1989, as this was when “The Tigers, The Army, The Indian peacekeepers, The JVP terrorists and State death squads were all killing each other at a prolific rate.” A time of curfews, bombs, assassinations, abductions and mass graves seemed to the author to be “a perfect setting for a ghost story, a detective tale or a spy thriller. Or all three.”
Children’s Books
Initially conceived as a story for his son, Please Don't Put That In Your Mouth marked the first formal collaboration between Shehan and his artist/illustrator brother, Lalith Karunatilaka, though Lalith had sketched the ball diagrams from Chinaman and the cover of Chats With The Dead. Speaking to LiveMint, the Author commented: “I have experienced many traumatic moments involving toddlers eating dangerous things. My daughter once mistook a wet paint brush for an ice cream and started licking it. My son is known to pick up dead insects and munch on them. I intended to write a cautionary tale, but silliness overtook it.”
