The Legend of Pradeep Mathew: A Novel
*Starred Review* For American readers clueless about cricket—and we are everywhere—this first novel might be tough going, despite having won the 2008 Gratiaen Prize, a literary award established by novelist Michael Ondaatje for the best English-language writing by a resident Sri Lankan, and despite Karunatilaka’s noble efforts to explain the game to the uninformed. Thankfully, we are guided through the novel by charming, aging, alcoholic sportswriter-bounder W. G. (Wije) Karunasena and his trusted friend Ari Byrd—both equally passionate and opinionated about cricket—as they seek out the elusive (and fictional) Tamil bowler Pradeep Mathew, whose patchy but brilliant career included Sri Lanka’s inspired (and real-life) World Cup championship in 1996. Arguing and deconstructing cricket all the way, the pair leads us to, among other places, Colombo’s living rooms, bars, casinos, and cricket pitches—and their attendant characters—all played out amid the island’s heartrending, surreal, 26-year-long civil war. If Ondaatje’s Anil’s Ghost (2000) portrayed that war in darkly rendered overtones, Karunatilaka weaves it into the whole cloth of Colombo’s comically absurd daily life. Yet droll as his observations might be (“They say ambulances in Sri Lanka barely make it to the funeral”), Wije is clear-eyed about his own and his country’s failings and the terrors those failings have produced. More impressive, Wije, like many of his countrymen, carries a heroism he hardly knows he has. --Alan Moores