For fans of E.M. Forster, Rohinton Mistry, V.S. Naipaul, Jean Rhys and Peter Carey Romesh Gunesekera has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize, the Commonwealth Writers Prize and the Guardian Fiction Prize A lyrical, beguiling story of slavery, freedom, identity and forbidden love and a dazzling insight into Mauritius under British and French colonial rule

'Gunesekera is strikingly adept at delineating the landscape of rootlessness ... [He] has a gentle, generous, deceptively light touch' - Sunday Times 'Gunesekera's lush descriptions make you see and smell the island and feel its hot, damp air on your skin' - Spectator 'Gunesekera has that essential gift of the novelist: the ability to make words live, to create life on the page' - Scotsman 'Subtle and convincing, it is life as art, art as life. Gunesekera is gifted and possessed of a rare humility ... [his writing] shows what fiction can do, it shows why fiction is written - and read' - Irish Times

Romesh Gunesekera is the author of four novels: Reef, which was shortlisted for both the Booker Prize and the Guardian Fiction Prize, The Sandglass, winner of the inaugural BBC Asia Award, Heaven's Edge, shortlisted for a Commonwealth Writers Prize and a New York Times Notable Book, and The Match. He has also written two collections of short stories: his acclaimed debut Monkfish Moon and a bilingual limited edition book O Colleccionador de Especiarias. He grew up in Sri Lanka and the Philippines and now lives in London. He first visited Mauritius in 1998 where he discovered the beginnings of this novel.