Sri Lanka flag Books from Sri Lanka

Recommended books (13)
Travel the world without leaving your chair. The target of the Read Around The World Challenge is to read at least one book written by an author from each and every country in the world. All books that are listed here as part of the "Read Around Asia Challenge" were written by authors from Sri Lanka. Find a great book for the next part of your reading journey around the world from this book list. The following popular books have been recommended so far.

1.

A Passage North by Anuk Audpragasam EN

Rating: 3     1 Vote
Country: Asia / Sri Lanka flag Sri Lanka
Description:
SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2021 It begins with a message: a telephone call informing Krishan that his grandmother''s former care-giver, Rani, has died in unexpected circumstances, at the bottom of a well in her village in the north, her neck broken by the fall. The news arrives on the heels of an email from Anjum, an activist he fell in love with four years earlier while living in Delhi, bringing with it the stirring of distant memories and desires. As Krishan makes the long journey by train from Colombo into the war-torn Northern Province for the funeral, so begins a passage into the so... continue
Recommended: 01 Nov 2022

2.
Funny Boy

Funny Boy : A Novel by Shyam Selvadurai EN

Rating: 4.5     9 Votes
Country: Asia / Sri Lanka flag Sri Lanka
Description:
A coming of age story about Arjun Chelvaratnam, who struggles with his homosexuality, entering into an affair with a schoolmate and breaking not only sexual taboos, but also social structures that separate the Tamil and Sinhalese.
Recommended: 08 May 2023

3.

In the Skin of a Lion : A Novel by Michael Ondaatje EN

Rating: 4     1 Vote
Country: Asia / Sri Lanka flag Sri Lanka
Description:
Bristling with intelligence and shimmering with romance, this novel tests the boundary between history and myth. Patrick Lewis arrives in Toronto in the 1920s and earns his living searching for a vanished millionaire and tunneling beneath Lake Ontario. In the course of his adventures, Patrick's life intersects with those of characters who reappear in Ondaatje's Booker Prize-winning The English Patient. 256 pp.
Recommended: 04 Sep 2022

4.

Island of a Thousand Mirrors : A Novel by Nayomi Munaweera EN

Rating: 4     10 Votes
Country: Asia / Sri Lanka flag Sri Lanka
Description:
Before violence tore apart the tapestry of Sri Lanka and turned its pristine beaches red, there were two families. Yasodhara tells the story of her own Sinhala family, rich in love, with everything they could ask for. As a child in idyllic Colombo, Yasodhara's and her siblings' lives are shaped by social hierarchies, their parents' ambitions, teenage love and, subtly, the differences between Tamil and Sinhala people; but the peace is shattered by the tragedies of war. Yasodhara's family escapes to Los Angeles. But Yasodhara's life has already become intertwined with a young Tamil girl's... Sar... continue
Genre
Recommended: 20 Feb 2022

5.

My Sweet Girl by Amanda Jayatissa EN

Rating: 4     1 Vote
Country: Asia / Sri Lanka flag Sri Lanka
Description:
'My Sweet Girl is like nothing else I've read. Set in San Francisco and Sri Lanka, this is a story about friendship, lies, and guilt. A stunning and original must-read' Samantha Downing, Sunday Times bestselling author of My Lovely Wife A girl in a new country. A dark secret left behind. A dead body which might tell all. Ever since she was adopted from an orphanage in Sri Lanka, Paloma has led a privileged Californian life: the best schools, a generous allowance and parents so perfect that Paloma fears she'll never live up to them. Now at thirty, Paloma has managed to disappoint her parents so... continue
Recommended: 26 Oct 2022

6.
Running in the Family

Running in the Family by Michael Ondaatje EN

Rating: 4     17 Votes
Country: Asia / Sri Lanka flag Sri Lanka
Description:
In the late 1970s Ondaatje returned to his native island of Sri Lanka. As he records his journey through the drug-like heat and intoxicating fragrances of that "pendant off the ear of India, " Ondaatje simultaneously retraces the baroque mythology of his Dutch-Ceylonese family. An inspired travel narrative and family memoir by an exceptional writer.
Recommended: 21 Oct 2022

7.
The English Patient

The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje EN

Rating: 4.2     7 Votes
Country: Asia / Sri Lanka flag Sri Lanka
Description:
With unsettling beauty and intelligence, this Golden Man Booker Prize–winning novel traces the intersection of four damaged lives in an abandoned Italian villa at the end of World War II. The nurse Hana, exhausted by death, obsessively tends to her last surviving patient. Caravaggio, the thief, tries to reimagine who he is, now that his hands are hopelessly maimed. The Indian sapper Kip searches for hidden bombs in a landscape where nothing is safe but himself. And at the center of his labyrinth lies the English patient, nameless and hideously burned, a man who is both a riddle and a provocati... continue
Recommended: 23 Dec 2022

8.
The Girl Who Stole an Elephant

The Girl Who Stole an Elephant by Nizrana Farook EN

Rating: 5     1 Vote
Country: Asia / Sri Lanka flag Sri Lanka
Description:
A thrilling, joyous adventure of friendship, flight and righting wrongs.
Genre
Recommended: 04 Jul 2023

9.
The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida

The seven moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka EN

Rating: 4     3 Votes
Country: Asia / Sri Lanka flag Sri Lanka
Description:
WINNER OF THE 2022 BOOKER PRIZE A searing satire set amid the murderous mayhem of Sri Lanka beset by civil war Colombo, 1990. Maali Almeida, war photographer, gambler and closet gay, has woken up dead in what seems like a celestial visa office. His dismembered body is sinking in the Beira Lake and he has no idea who killed him. At a time when scores are settled by death squads, suicide bombers and hired goons, the list of suspects is depressingly long, as the ghouls and ghosts who cluster around him can attest. But even in the afterlife, time is running out for Maali. He has seven moons to try... continue

10.

The Story of a Brief Marriage by Anuk Arudpragasam EN

Rating: 3     6 Votes
Country: Asia / Sri Lanka flag Sri Lanka
Description:
Dinesh is a young man trapped on the frontlines between the Sri Lankan army and the Tamil Tigers. Desensitized to the horror all around him, life has been pared back to the essentials: eat, sleep, survive. All this changes when he is approached one morning by an older man who asks him to marry his daughter Ganga, hoping that victorious soldiers will be less likely to harm a married woman. For a few brief hours, Dinesh and Ganga tentatively explore their new and unexpected connection, trying to understand themselves and each other, until the war once more closes over them. Told in meditative, n... continue
Genre
Recommended: 20 Feb 2022


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