Author(s): Romesh Gunesekera

Fiction

From the Booker-shortlisted author of Reef comes a novel about cricket, growing up and falling in love

Sunny is Sri Lankan and nearly fifteen years old. It is the late sixties, and his father has moved the two of them to Manila, after his mother's death. Sunny decides to start a cricket team with the other Sri Lankans to get the attention of his attractive neighbour. But even when first love goes wrong, his passion for cricket remains, the only connection he has to the home he left behind.

Sunny goes on to attend university in London, and when his father dies he finds himself unable to return to the Philippines. He falls in love, and makes a new life for himself in England. But despite the obvious tranquillity of his life, he feels unmoored, increasingly distanced from his lovely wife and especially from their son, who doesn't share his interest in cricket?

From the acclaimed author of Reef and Heaven's Edge, The Match is a heart-warming, funny family saga, stretching from the seventies to the present-day and moving from Asia to Europe. It is a story about fathers and sons, of finding home and coming home, of cricket, growing up and falling in love. First published 2006.