In these stories, the acclaimed author of the Reef describes his homeland of Sri Lanka--a kind of paradise in which a sudden moment of silence in a city is cause for fear, where civil war disrupts a marriage thousands of miles away, and where the building up of home, relationships, and lives is more often than not swiftly and violently brought down. A New York Times Notable Book of the Year.

Romesh Gunesekera is the author of Monkfish Moon, Reef, The Sandglass, The Match, and Noontide Toll (all published by The New Press). He grew up in Sri Lanka and the Philippines and now lives in London.