Debut novelist and international best-selling writer
View(s):Our new mini-series in collaboration with the Fairway Galle Literary Festival will over the next six weeks introduce you to visiting authors through our column.
Follow along and you will stand to win two full festival passes in our draw. All you need to do is answer the questions we will pose later in our series.
In the meantime, get acquainted with visiting authors and plan for the sessions you simply do not want to miss.
Paul M.M. Cooper
Though Paul M.M. Cooper’s ‘River of Ink’ is only due out in 2016, it already has a 4.42 rating on GoodReads (a site popular with bookworms) thanks to pre-release reviews.
The blurb promises a ‘powerful historical tale set in the shadow of oppression’ and reveals that the plot unravels in thirteenth-century Sri Lanka where Asanka, poet to the king, lives a luxurious life at court. Enter Magha, a prince from the mainland, who usurps the throne, and sets Asanka to the role of a lifetime.
‘Magha is a cruel and calculating king – and yet, a lover of poetry – and he commissions Asanka to translate a holy Sanskrit epic into the Tamil language spoken by his recently acquired subjects. The poem will be an olive branch – a symbol of unity between the two cultures.’
The novel is being hailed as a remarkable debut from a young writer who was born in south London and grew up in Wales. Educated at the University of Warwick and UEA, Cooper first came to Sri Lanka to work as an English teacher.
He has since returned many times to the island, seemingly drawn here particularly by the ruins of Polonnaruwa. He has learnt to speak Sinhala and to read Tamil.
On his WordPress site ‘Whatalotofbirds,’ he blogs about his craft and reflects on literature and culture.
Matt Haig
In a list in his new book Reasons to Stay Alive, Matt Haig jots down some of the “things that have happened to me that have generated more sympathy than depression.” In there are: “Having tinnitus, losing a job, breaking a toe, being in debt, bad Amazon reviews.”
Haig is known as the internationally bestselling writer of five novels, including ‘The Humans’ and ‘The Radleys.’ His work has been widely translated and all his novels for adults have been optioned for film. But it his most recent book, the non-fiction ‘Reasons to Stay Alive’ which has become a runaway bestseller in the UK.
In the book, Haig details a nervous breakdown in his mid-20s and describes three years of depression which left him practically unable to leave the house.
A father of two, Haig has told interviewers that the book helped him understand and better cope with his condition, but that it also brought with it conversations about the stigma around mental illness.
Despite, or perhaps thanks to all the attention the book has received, Haig says his next work will be on something entirely different – “I don’t want to be pigeonholed.”
He is also working on the screenplay for The Humans, described as a novel that ‘combines Douglas Adams’s irreverent take on life, the universe, and everything with a genuinely moving love story.’