There is something rich and inviting about the novels of many writers from the Indian region, which is perhaps a legacy of tales woven with human weaknesses and triumphs, of family love and bickering and intricate connections.
Sri Lankan Romesh Gunesekera has taken up the baton admirably, with his previous novel, Reef, being shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1994. From the pages of his latest work, The Sandglass, spring images of both the grey, cold streets of London and the warm breezes of Colombo.
Gunesekera casts himself in the role of a close friend of the Ducal family, whose matriarch, Pearl, left Sri Lanka after her businessman husband died mysteriously of a gunshot wound in his Colombo offices. Nearing the end of her life, Pearl conjures up the days when her husband Jason had just begun climbing the corporate ladder. The couple made their home in a large colonial house subdivided from the land of the Vatunas family. There, they produced two daughters and a son.
The Vatunases, who were to become enemies of the Ducals for at least two generations, drew their wealth from the astute manoeuvrings of patriarch Buttons Vatunas. Decades were spent trying to drive the Ducals from Arcadia, the sanctuary Jason had decided was his Shangri-la.
Various Vatunases, from the comfort of their grand home, Bellevue, ordered gardeners to pile manure and rubbish along the border shared with Arcadia, lighting bonfires to try to drive the interlopers out.
From today's London, The Sandglass continually snakes back in time to Sri Lanka of the 1940s and 50s, where the two families endured their nonsensical but all-consuming feud.
Pearl's memories, more vibrant than her present-day environment of a faded front room dominated by television re-runs of old movies, bring the past alive with the tropical scents of freshly cut grass, spices and steamy gardens.
