NOONTIDE TOLL

A superb collection of interlinked stories – perceptive, sombre, finely-tuned – NOONTIDE TOLL draws a potent portrait of post-war Sri Lanka and the ghosts of civil war.

The driver’s job is to stay in control behind the wheel and that is all. The past is what you leave as you go. There is nothing more to it.
Vasantha retired early, bought himself a van with his savings and now works as a driver for hire. As he drives through Sri Lanka carrying aid workers, businessmen and families, meeting lonely soldiers and eager hoteliers, he engages them with self- deprecating wit and folksy wisdom, and reveals for us their uncertain, difficult lives. On his journey from the army camps in northern Jaffna to the moonlit ramparts of Galle, in the south, he begins to discover the depth of the problems of the past - his own and his country’s - and the promise the future might hold.
A superb collection of interlinked stories – perceptive, sombre, finely-tuned – NOONTIDE TOLL draws a potent portrait of post-war Sri Lanka and the ghosts of civil war.

Romesh Gunesekera was born in 1954 and grew up in Sri Lanka and the Philippines before moving to England in 1972. His story collection, Monkfish Moon, was published in 1992 by Granta, and his first novel, Reef, was shortlisted for the Guardian Fiction Prize and the Booker Prize. He lives in London.