Sebastian Shakespeare
Far From Home
The Match is about a man trying to make sense of his multi-cultural identity. Born in Colombo and brought up in Manila, Sunny Fernando emigrates to England, where he gives up his engineering degree to become a photographer. But he finds it hard to focus on his place in the world. To paraphrase T S Eliot, he is dislocated from dislocation by dislocation:
In his life he had never felt he knew anything for sure … the doubt never stopped growing inside, slowly, inexorably distorting everything.
If the themes of exile and emigration seem wearisomely familiar, their execution is less prosaic. Romesh Gunesekera has a lightness of touch and a wry tone which mark him out from many more fashionable novelists.
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