Serendipity

Shifting between London and Sri Lanka and set in the 1980s, when the twenty-six-year civil war in Sri Lanka had only just begun, Serendipity is part satire, part thriller, part comedy of manners. Piyumi Segarajasingham, young London barrister, half-Tamil, half-Sinhalese, returns to Sri Lanka to take charge of her family's share of the inheritance. She wants to keep her share of it, the servants' quarters of the house called Serendipity, in Colombo's colonial quarter, Cinnamon Gardens. But this will devalue the rest of the house that her relatives are so keen in sell. In Sri Lanka, Piyumi meets a motley assortment of characters. The pivotal question-will the young lovers Piyumi and Marek, the stranger she met in London, ever get together?-is shrouded by twists and turns in the plot and memorable characters, who Ferrey fixes with merciless wit and pin-sharp accuracy. Ferrey's lightness of touch and ability to create humour out of the ordinary is peerless; he is a forerunner in this tradition in contemporary Sri Lankan fiction in English.