The Wretched and the Damned

Blurb: a Kafkaesque, near-future Sri Lanka, where superpowers are a lot more common and common sense is still a rarity; about a bunch of rebels trying to overthrow a corrupt, nepotistic, dynastic government; about hopes, dreams, violence, and about the stupidity of it all. Winner of the 2023 Gratiaen Prize.

While some of my short stories have been set in Sri Lanka, I try to avoid expounding on Sri Lanka in my fiction. The excuse I give is that my journalistic work already covers Sri Lanka’s multiple crises in painful detail, from economics to mass graves. I have said what I want to say there; for my fiction I prefer to be free to imagine, and let Sri Lanka come with me.

Unfortunately, it seemed I still have some things to say. I’ve published the Foreword], which gives more information on how the book came to be. And it turns out that these things were perhaps important enough that the Gratiaen Trust saw fit to award me a major literary prize for this work.

As of the time of writing, the Wretched and the Damned is signed for publication with Perera Hussein; it will also come out as an email newsletter, in the original manner in which I first thought to release it.