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Reef
The "incandescent" ( New York Times Book Review ) coming-of-age-story and debut novel by the acclaimed Booker Prize finalist Romesh Gunesekera
Triton loved living in Mister Salgado's house. It was the biggest house he had ever seen--filled with floors to sweep and silver to polish and meals to cook and adults to impress and a brilliant master whose voice was poetry. And people from all over the world came to the house-- to sell their wares, to talk, to live, for this was where life took place. Even the sun would rise from the garage and sleep behind the del tree at night. And in the house, life was good. But beyond Mister Salgado's house and their Sri Lankan village there was a world. And all around them, it was falling apart...
Triton loved living in Mister Salgado's house. It was the biggest house he had ever seen--filled with floors to sweep and silver to polish and meals to cook and adults to impress and a brilliant master whose voice was poetry. And people from all over the world came to the house-- to sell their wares, to talk, to live, for this was where life took place. Even the sun would rise from the garage and sleep behind the del tree at night. And in the house, life was good. But beyond Mister Salgado's house and their Sri Lankan village there was a world. And all around them, it was falling apart...
193 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1994
74 people are currently reading
6333 people want to read
About the author
Romesh Gunesekera
21 books195 followersRomesh Gunesekera was born in Sri Lanka where he spent his early years. Before coming to Britain he also lived in the Philippines. He now lives in London. In 2010 he was writer in residence at Somerset House.
His first novel, Reef, was published in 1994 and was short-listed as a finalist for the Booker Prize, as well as for the Guardian Fiction Prize. In the USA he was nominated for a New Voice Award.
Before that, in 1992 his first collection of stories, Monkfish Moon, was one of the first titles in Granta’s venture into book publishing. It was shortlisted for several prizes and named a New York Times Notable Book for 1993.
In 1998, he received the inaugural BBC Asia Award for Achievement in Writing & Literature for his novel The Sandglass. The previous year he was awarded one of the prestigious Italian literary prizes: the Premio Mondello Five Continents. In 1995 he won the Yorkshire Post Best First Work Award in Britain.
His third novel, Heaven’s Edge, a dystopian novel set in the near future was published by Bloomsbury in 2002.
Four years later Bloomsbury also published The Match hailed as one of the first novels in which cricket was celebrated, and a forerunner of the many cricket-related novels that have followed.
In 2008, a collection of his Madeira stories were published in a bilingual edition to celebrate its 500th anniversary of the founding of Funchal in Madeira.
His most recent novel is Suncatcher. His other books are Noontide Toll, a collection of linked stories, and the historical novel The Prisoner of Paradise.
Romesh Gunesekera is an elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and has also received a National Honour in Sri Lanka.
He has been a judge for a number of literary prizes including the Caine Prize for African Writing, the David Cohen Literature Prize and the Forward Prize for Poetry. He has been a Guest Director at the Cheltenham Festival, an Associate Tutor at Goldsmiths College and on the Board of the Arvon Foundation for writing.
His first novel, Reef, was published in 1994 and was short-listed as a finalist for the Booker Prize, as well as for the Guardian Fiction Prize. In the USA he was nominated for a New Voice Award.
Before that, in 1992 his first collection of stories, Monkfish Moon, was one of the first titles in Granta’s venture into book publishing. It was shortlisted for several prizes and named a New York Times Notable Book for 1993.
In 1998, he received the inaugural BBC Asia Award for Achievement in Writing & Literature for his novel The Sandglass. The previous year he was awarded one of the prestigious Italian literary prizes: the Premio Mondello Five Continents. In 1995 he won the Yorkshire Post Best First Work Award in Britain.
His third novel, Heaven’s Edge, a dystopian novel set in the near future was published by Bloomsbury in 2002.
Four years later Bloomsbury also published The Match hailed as one of the first novels in which cricket was celebrated, and a forerunner of the many cricket-related novels that have followed.
In 2008, a collection of his Madeira stories were published in a bilingual edition to celebrate its 500th anniversary of the founding of Funchal in Madeira.
His most recent novel is Suncatcher. His other books are Noontide Toll, a collection of linked stories, and the historical novel The Prisoner of Paradise.
Romesh Gunesekera is an elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and has also received a National Honour in Sri Lanka.
He has been a judge for a number of literary prizes including the Caine Prize for African Writing, the David Cohen Literature Prize and the Forward Prize for Poetry. He has been a Guest Director at the Cheltenham Festival, an Associate Tutor at Goldsmiths College and on the Board of the Arvon Foundation for writing.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 244 reviews
February 8, 2017
An engaging story of servant and master in Sri Lanka. Triton, the servant, calls his master "The Mister." He devotes his life to him, so much so that it is almost (but not) a homoerotic relationship.
The Mister does little besides exist and piddle around. He writes and throws an occasional party and then falls in love. There is not a whole lot of plot otherwise. After the failed love affair, master and servant leave for England.
We are also treated to some delightful gastroporn as the servant lovingly prepares meals. Don't we all wish we had a devoted servant like Triton? In fact, he has far more initiative and common sense than the Mister. I'm reminded of a line thrown off by Berta, the housekeeper to Charlie, in the American TV sitcom 'Two and a Half Men:' "In an ideal world, you'd be washing my shorts."
This is a good read with a lot of local color of post-colonial Sri Lanka, although it's hard to put a date on it. A strong flavor of Merchant and Ivory and "Masterpiece Theater."
(Revised 1/30/2017)
Photo from SlideShare, "Sri Lanka old photo collection"
The Mister does little besides exist and piddle around. He writes and throws an occasional party and then falls in love. There is not a whole lot of plot otherwise. After the failed love affair, master and servant leave for England.
We are also treated to some delightful gastroporn as the servant lovingly prepares meals. Don't we all wish we had a devoted servant like Triton? In fact, he has far more initiative and common sense than the Mister. I'm reminded of a line thrown off by Berta, the housekeeper to Charlie, in the American TV sitcom 'Two and a Half Men:' "In an ideal world, you'd be washing my shorts."
This is a good read with a lot of local color of post-colonial Sri Lanka, although it's hard to put a date on it. A strong flavor of Merchant and Ivory and "Masterpiece Theater."
(Revised 1/30/2017)
Photo from SlideShare, "Sri Lanka old photo collection"
January 7, 2020
The type of novel that affects you in the gut. O yeah. Seriously. All the dishes our protagonist prepares for his master seem scrumptious, the tongue salivates profusely with this much food porn! & the locale! Sri Lanka! Ever been there? Neither have I. But this book is exquisite in its crisp prose, its wholesome, universal tone. It's a story as ancient as the replenishing-then-destroying corals of the bright reef. I feel like I finally got back on track with this one, reading my favorite type of novel. The one which proves to have truly earned its myriad positive critical reviews.
(12.1.17) Reading this in an empty matchbox studio apartment in the middle of murderville... I have fond memories of this one!
(12.1.17) Reading this in an empty matchbox studio apartment in the middle of murderville... I have fond memories of this one!
February 28, 2016
It's not what we do every day but the thoughts we live with, gentleman amateur of science Mister Salgado says. Triton, his cook and disciple, contemplates in this story not the ecosystems of the reef and shore that fascinate the man he serves, but Mister Salgado himself, his moods and needs, his relationships, and above all the food to be prepared for him. At times I felt that Triton was Mister Salgado's heart, feeling more intensely than the man he watches vicarious excitement, jubilation, misery. He has his own life and ideas, devouring hundreds of books, but in this little book, he orbits his employer.
I was reminded of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's novel Half of a Yellow Sun, one strand of which is narrated by the protagonists' houseboy, and also V. S Naipaul's novella In a Free State, which, quite similar in structure but totally different in mood, is told from the point of view of a servant. Is the servant-narrated tale doomed to be bourgeois? Like Ugwu in Half of a Yellow Sun, Triton adores his employer. Mister Salgado's taciturn assistant Wijetunga reveals himself to be some sort of communist sympathiser in a very vague conversation that makes Triton shiver uncomfortably. Nobody reading this could possibly wish for any kind of revolution. No world could be happier than this, surely? So, it's a lightweight book, a crisp and shimmering snowflake of a story that opens a channel for empathy, not solidarity. Hence, I can't give 5 stars.
The sensuous pleasures of cerebral activity (he is Fanon's colonized intellectual) absorb Mister Salgado's attention a little less as he falls in love with Miss Nili. Triton falls in love with her too of course, but only insofar as he is Mister Salgado's heart; he cannot separate from the other man to become jealous, to desire his own relationship with Miss Nili, he only wants their love to succeed, and to that end woos both of them with ever more sumptuous food.
In this floating dreamworld, politics is an increasingly ugly rumble in the background, but Gunesekara isn't subsuming it here; its parallel, I think, is the quietly dying reef, an ecological disaster going on unremarked, and the land-hungry sea. Sooner or later the country will explode into violence, Mister Salgado in his books, his love, his social life, the cosy cocoon of his mind, can stay untouched by it only so long. A journalist comes to ask him how the rising sea level is affecting life in coastal villages, a subject he knows nothing about. The question disturbs him, but he responds with a kind of extravagant denial: “Maybe the sea is rising, but maybe it's because Armstrong kicked the moon...”
Triton's voice is light and lovely, his descriptions are gorgeous, a sensuous pleasure to read. As a food-lover I relished the care and detail given to describing cooking and preparing, but as a vegan I was often disgusted as well! This admixed delight and disgust is perhaps not unintended. Mister Salgado chatises Triton as a youth for killing a bird, Triton tells Mister Salgado the story of the Thousand Bloody Little Fingers. Disgust, anger at violence, is evoked on purpose. In Triton's mind chicken fat and milk floating in water mirrors talk about astrology, a milky way taking a destined shape. I disagree with this reading. The seemingly inevitable violence to come is signalled in the bodily fluids of farmed animals, yet no killing, suggested in the stars or not, is unavoidable – people choose to exploit, torment and murder others, and have the power to do otherwise. Triton, without power, without community, can only observe from his shelter. He is lucky, and the story ends happily (this isn't a spoiler because the tale opens with its ending – it's told as memory) because the personal, the emotional, is always paramount. What terrible things happen, elsewhere, we muse, standing above the strandline. But deeper reflection comes to us there; as Triton muses, the sea is all one.
I was reminded of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's novel Half of a Yellow Sun, one strand of which is narrated by the protagonists' houseboy, and also V. S Naipaul's novella In a Free State, which, quite similar in structure but totally different in mood, is told from the point of view of a servant. Is the servant-narrated tale doomed to be bourgeois? Like Ugwu in Half of a Yellow Sun, Triton adores his employer. Mister Salgado's taciturn assistant Wijetunga reveals himself to be some sort of communist sympathiser in a very vague conversation that makes Triton shiver uncomfortably. Nobody reading this could possibly wish for any kind of revolution. No world could be happier than this, surely? So, it's a lightweight book, a crisp and shimmering snowflake of a story that opens a channel for empathy, not solidarity. Hence, I can't give 5 stars.
The sensuous pleasures of cerebral activity (he is Fanon's colonized intellectual) absorb Mister Salgado's attention a little less as he falls in love with Miss Nili. Triton falls in love with her too of course, but only insofar as he is Mister Salgado's heart; he cannot separate from the other man to become jealous, to desire his own relationship with Miss Nili, he only wants their love to succeed, and to that end woos both of them with ever more sumptuous food.
In this floating dreamworld, politics is an increasingly ugly rumble in the background, but Gunesekara isn't subsuming it here; its parallel, I think, is the quietly dying reef, an ecological disaster going on unremarked, and the land-hungry sea. Sooner or later the country will explode into violence, Mister Salgado in his books, his love, his social life, the cosy cocoon of his mind, can stay untouched by it only so long. A journalist comes to ask him how the rising sea level is affecting life in coastal villages, a subject he knows nothing about. The question disturbs him, but he responds with a kind of extravagant denial: “Maybe the sea is rising, but maybe it's because Armstrong kicked the moon...”
Triton's voice is light and lovely, his descriptions are gorgeous, a sensuous pleasure to read. As a food-lover I relished the care and detail given to describing cooking and preparing, but as a vegan I was often disgusted as well! This admixed delight and disgust is perhaps not unintended. Mister Salgado chatises Triton as a youth for killing a bird, Triton tells Mister Salgado the story of the Thousand Bloody Little Fingers. Disgust, anger at violence, is evoked on purpose. In Triton's mind chicken fat and milk floating in water mirrors talk about astrology, a milky way taking a destined shape. I disagree with this reading. The seemingly inevitable violence to come is signalled in the bodily fluids of farmed animals, yet no killing, suggested in the stars or not, is unavoidable – people choose to exploit, torment and murder others, and have the power to do otherwise. Triton, without power, without community, can only observe from his shelter. He is lucky, and the story ends happily (this isn't a spoiler because the tale opens with its ending – it's told as memory) because the personal, the emotional, is always paramount. What terrible things happen, elsewhere, we muse, standing above the strandline. But deeper reflection comes to us there; as Triton muses, the sea is all one.
July 10, 2020
This is another of the books that has been sitting on the to-read shelf for a while - another Booker shortlisted novel by a Sri Lankan author I had not read before.
It is a short book and an enjoyable read, told from the perspective of Triton, a servant who has worked for a Mr Salgado, scientist interested in coral reefs, who becomes his housekeeper and cook. This gives him a slightly distanced perspective to observe as Salgado's career is derailed first by a love affair and then by political events in Sri Lanka that leads him to move to London.
If I have a criticism is that Triton seems a little too much of a perfect servant - all of his culinary adventures are successful, but perhaps he should be seen as a little unreliable as a narrator.
I would be interested in reading more by Gunesekara.
It is a short book and an enjoyable read, told from the perspective of Triton, a servant who has worked for a Mr Salgado, scientist interested in coral reefs, who becomes his housekeeper and cook. This gives him a slightly distanced perspective to observe as Salgado's career is derailed first by a love affair and then by political events in Sri Lanka that leads him to move to London.
If I have a criticism is that Triton seems a little too much of a perfect servant - all of his culinary adventures are successful, but perhaps he should be seen as a little unreliable as a narrator.
I would be interested in reading more by Gunesekara.
December 4, 2022
A bland story about an 11yo boy who needs a new home, is taken in by a master, and spends his life serving him as a houseboy taking care of every whim. Somehow the boy really enjoys this life, and spends his time perfecting the tastiest meals for unappreciative people, desparately hoping for their approval.
Have you ever worked with someone whose main topic of conversation is food? What they will be having for dinner tonight, what they had last night, what should they order for lunch, and you politely go along with if but you really don’t care? This is how the book felt. It was one recipe after another. I’m not a foodie so it was a miss for me.
There wasn’t much of a plot come to think of it. There were some subtle inclusions about politics and civil war in Sri Lanka where it’s set. The back cover of the book describes this as a love story??? For the reef? It was mentioned once or twice, so I guess??
The writing was fine. It was easy enough to get through. I kept waiting for anything to happen. That’s about all.
Have you ever worked with someone whose main topic of conversation is food? What they will be having for dinner tonight, what they had last night, what should they order for lunch, and you politely go along with if but you really don’t care? This is how the book felt. It was one recipe after another. I’m not a foodie so it was a miss for me.
There wasn’t much of a plot come to think of it. There were some subtle inclusions about politics and civil war in Sri Lanka where it’s set. The back cover of the book describes this as a love story??? For the reef? It was mentioned once or twice, so I guess??
The writing was fine. It was easy enough to get through. I kept waiting for anything to happen. That’s about all.
August 24, 2025
I waited 5 years to find a paperback copy of this book to read, and while I'm glad I eventually found it and read it, I fear I may have had inflated expectations of such a slim book. My favourite part was the food, which Triton, the self-taught houseboy/cook, produced for his beloved employer Mr Salgado and his friends. I guess a close second was the slowly dawning awareness that Triton had of the changing political situation in Sri Lanka. Some of his observations were fittingly naive, while others were sharply astute. But that is also where the length of the book frustrated me - I felt that side of the story could have been developed a lot more. Overall I'm glad I read it.
April 18, 2018
A top notch writer; so many fine descriptions in this work eg ‘we drove…whistling over a ribbon of tarmac…framing the landscape into a kaleidoscope of bluish jewels’ ‘adventurers…each with their flotilla of disturbed hope and manic wanderlust’. ‘the shallow water seethed with creatures…whirling tails…sea snakes, sea slugs, tentacles sprouting and grasping…a jungle of writhing shapes’ ‘the debris of one mind floats to another. The same little polyp grows the idea in another head’. A distinguished wordsmith
January 17, 2022
This book reached my heart in a way that I haven't felt in a long time. I freaking can't believe that it took me this long to read a book written by an author from my own goddamn country. Definitely going to diversify my reading this year :)
June 11, 2023
Gorgeous prose especially food descriptions and a gut punch that slowly builds, no idea how I heard about this one but glad I did! A nice quick read
November 1, 2012
A story set in Sri Lanka in the 1960’s and 70’s told through the eyes of Triton, an 11-year-old who has finished his schooling and gone to work as a houseboy for Mister Salgado, a successful academic and ‘intellectual’. The book opens in Sri Lanka in 1962, ‘the year of the bungled coup’ and continues through the 1960’s and 70’s as revolutionary fever builds up in the country. The reef to which Salgado is notionally and limply attached to and its impending destruction is an allegory for the impact of political change happening in the country at the time, and the tragedy (in the writers eyes) unfolding of a rather brutal destruction of way of life held dear. A passionate but ultimately wasted love affair woven through tells the same story. ‘The urge to build, to transform nature, to make something out of nothing is universal. But to conserve, to protect, to care for the past is something we have to learn.’ Which of course is true, so….
A nice soft book to read, with a low simmering undercurrent adding some spice. Enjoyable, but for me the sambol was ultimately a little bland, too many questions left out there
August 29, 2014
The first book I read of Romesh Gunasekara.
I must say that I thoroughly enjoyed every page.In some instances I could almost taste the love cake and the freshly fried patties. "Nili nona" and Mr.Salgado would've been people I knew or seen in the society pages of a Sunday Newspaper.
I must say that I thoroughly enjoyed every page.In some instances I could almost taste the love cake and the freshly fried patties. "Nili nona" and Mr.Salgado would've been people I knew or seen in the society pages of a Sunday Newspaper.
September 10, 2021
A light, feel-good, emotionally captivating tale set in pre-war Sri Lanka. Gunesekara's prose is refreshing, and he moors the entire story to a single house with a limited set of characters. This novel had a climate consciousness that was ahead of its time and I wonder what people made of it when it came out.
I felt that the character of Triton (his sense and sensibilities) was borderline implausible - his references and imagination seemed incompatible with his past; there was no thread of continuity linking his pre- and post- Salgado life, as if it were two different people altogether. But it didn't really bother me. Also, the book was too short and I felt that many of its themes were underdeveloped. It's not just a matter of leaving things unsaid. There are many abrupt, unexplained exits that needed smoother transitions. Given a bigger room, this novel would've flourished so much more. I sensed an undercurrent of homoeroticism that might not have been intended, but made it more intriguing and sensuous.
Nonetheless, an enchanting experience this novel is, akin to a tour of the reefs from the comfort of a glass boat.I will be trying out more of Gunasekera to find out if he retains this beautiful lightness in his other novels.
I felt that the character of Triton (his sense and sensibilities) was borderline implausible - his references and imagination seemed incompatible with his past; there was no thread of continuity linking his pre- and post- Salgado life, as if it were two different people altogether. But it didn't really bother me. Also, the book was too short and I felt that many of its themes were underdeveloped. It's not just a matter of leaving things unsaid. There are many abrupt, unexplained exits that needed smoother transitions. Given a bigger room, this novel would've flourished so much more. I sensed an undercurrent of homoeroticism that might not have been intended, but made it more intriguing and sensuous.
Nonetheless, an enchanting experience this novel is, akin to a tour of the reefs from the comfort of a glass boat.I will be trying out more of Gunasekera to find out if he retains this beautiful lightness in his other novels.
January 24, 2022
It’s funny that I’m only reviewing this now even though it was one of the first books I read in 2021. I picked this one up because 1) It is historical fiction 2) it’s setting, Sri Lanka (it would be my first time experiencing a Sri Lankan author) and 3) it was R20 😂.
In this short book, told from the perspective of Triton, who at the age of 11 goes to work as a “house boy” for Mister Salgado, a marine biologist. Through his eyes, and we see the day to day activities of this young boy and his growing devotion to Mister Salgado. You’d almost miss that it’s set between the 1960’s and 1970’s, a time of political unrest and religious turmoil - although it’s not explicitly mentioned because Triton’s devotion to his master is almost blinding. However, as a reader you start reading between the lines and notice the parallels between the impact of political change with the reef’s impending distruction.
It was an enchanting read, and I’m so glad that I picked it up 🥺
Oh and I’d be doing this book a disservice if I didn’t point out the delicious sounding foods mentioned 😍 if I didn’t hate cooking I’d have loved to try some of these recipes out, but my imagination will do for now 💀
In this short book, told from the perspective of Triton, who at the age of 11 goes to work as a “house boy” for Mister Salgado, a marine biologist. Through his eyes, and we see the day to day activities of this young boy and his growing devotion to Mister Salgado. You’d almost miss that it’s set between the 1960’s and 1970’s, a time of political unrest and religious turmoil - although it’s not explicitly mentioned because Triton’s devotion to his master is almost blinding. However, as a reader you start reading between the lines and notice the parallels between the impact of political change with the reef’s impending distruction.
It was an enchanting read, and I’m so glad that I picked it up 🥺
Oh and I’d be doing this book a disservice if I didn’t point out the delicious sounding foods mentioned 😍 if I didn’t hate cooking I’d have loved to try some of these recipes out, but my imagination will do for now 💀
February 10, 2013
This is beautiful, sensual writing. I heard Romesh Gunsekera on the BBC's World Book Club and was tremendously impressed by his unassuming wisdom and ability to share his knowledge about fine writing.
The novel skillfully adapts its tone to the protagonist's aging from about 10 to 16 or so, I would guess. The scenes shift back and forth from brutality, early on for the boy, to love, joy, delight, and violence again. There is no explanation for any of it, except the basic decency that is the foundation of the relationship between the boy and the man he works for, to set against the horrific violence referred to briefly at the end of the novel as Sri Lanka sinks into civil war. The reader is left with the conclusion that one cannot really affect very much, but one can enrich his own and others lives through caring for them.
The novel skillfully adapts its tone to the protagonist's aging from about 10 to 16 or so, I would guess. The scenes shift back and forth from brutality, early on for the boy, to love, joy, delight, and violence again. There is no explanation for any of it, except the basic decency that is the foundation of the relationship between the boy and the man he works for, to set against the horrific violence referred to briefly at the end of the novel as Sri Lanka sinks into civil war. The reader is left with the conclusion that one cannot really affect very much, but one can enrich his own and others lives through caring for them.
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July 28, 2011Love it! The best storytellers and stories seem to come from Sri Lanka.
October 28, 2025
This book was for me an experience of unalloyed pleasure: beautiful prose; wonderful descriptions of Sri Lanka mainly prior to the terrible civil war; a bittersweet coming of age story of a houseboy working for a wealthy Sinhalese marine biologist, Mr Salgado, who is interested in climate change as expressed by observing the oceans and especially by studying the corals.
Although the author, Romesh Gunesekera, has received some exposure: good critical reviews and been shortlisted for some prizes, including a Booker shortlisting for this book in 1994, he seems to have slipped under the radar despite a slow but steady literary output.
The story focuses on Triton, a young boy, who comes from a rather vague village background and eventually takes over completely the running of Mr Salgado”s house especially his kitchen, creating ever more complicated meals culminating in a rather hilarious Christmas dinner replete with a huge Turkey, not easy to obtain or cook in tropical Columbo. There are lush descriptions of the coast at Galle, on the Southern end of Sri Lanka: the fish and the local fishermen at work; the vibrant and slightly shockingly gutsy (literally) fish markets; the beaches, the blue sea and relaxed sunshine imbued coastal living. The reader experiences an account of the lives and loves of this comfortably off scientist through the eyes of the unsophisticated and uneducated village boy/young adult who remains unperturbed and unprepared for the outbreak of terrible sectarian violence between the ethnic Tamils from the North of the Island and the dominant Southern Sinhalese. However this is resolutely not a novel about this conflict but about life before the civil war.
Overall a short novel with a memorable sense of time and place, evoking a lost almost dreamlike paradise which was already starting to falling apart at the seams, the warning signs of social and political unrest very evident.
Although the author, Romesh Gunesekera, has received some exposure: good critical reviews and been shortlisted for some prizes, including a Booker shortlisting for this book in 1994, he seems to have slipped under the radar despite a slow but steady literary output.
The story focuses on Triton, a young boy, who comes from a rather vague village background and eventually takes over completely the running of Mr Salgado”s house especially his kitchen, creating ever more complicated meals culminating in a rather hilarious Christmas dinner replete with a huge Turkey, not easy to obtain or cook in tropical Columbo. There are lush descriptions of the coast at Galle, on the Southern end of Sri Lanka: the fish and the local fishermen at work; the vibrant and slightly shockingly gutsy (literally) fish markets; the beaches, the blue sea and relaxed sunshine imbued coastal living. The reader experiences an account of the lives and loves of this comfortably off scientist through the eyes of the unsophisticated and uneducated village boy/young adult who remains unperturbed and unprepared for the outbreak of terrible sectarian violence between the ethnic Tamils from the North of the Island and the dominant Southern Sinhalese. However this is resolutely not a novel about this conflict but about life before the civil war.
Overall a short novel with a memorable sense of time and place, evoking a lost almost dreamlike paradise which was already starting to falling apart at the seams, the warning signs of social and political unrest very evident.
September 18, 2025
‘Reef’ shows the conflict between the violence in Sri Lanka and the beautiful paradise it is.
The use of contrast is used throughout the book like how in the beginning descriptions of the house would later been followed by anger and frustration . As well as Tritons love for cooking and helping out in the kitchen to suddenly wanting to leave and hating dropping out of school. Lastly, how Nili at first is seem to be sweet ends up leaving bitterly.
Gumesekera is brilliant at displaying a false paradise with us truly believing in the happiness and the glamour just for it to slowly start to decay.
I also really enjoyed getting to read more about my culture and to see talented literature from where I’m from.
Nevertheless, there was some empty moments throughout the book and it did lie to me about being a love story (which I’m slightly bitter about).
The use of contrast is used throughout the book like how in the beginning descriptions of the house would later been followed by anger and frustration . As well as Tritons love for cooking and helping out in the kitchen to suddenly wanting to leave and hating dropping out of school. Lastly, how Nili at first is seem to be sweet ends up leaving bitterly.
Gumesekera is brilliant at displaying a false paradise with us truly believing in the happiness and the glamour just for it to slowly start to decay.
I also really enjoyed getting to read more about my culture and to see talented literature from where I’m from.
Nevertheless, there was some empty moments throughout the book and it did lie to me about being a love story (which I’m slightly bitter about).
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 8, 2019
It really is mostly about the guy cooking to impress his master and girlfriend that he has a crush on but the ending is very cool
July 9, 2022
This novel is like a breeze. It whisks past you, briefly touching; but there is no real foundation or centre. It comes and it goes. In some ways, that's partly the point: most decisions and ways of living our life have no bearing on the political and cultural movements of our era. We are often at their mercy, as are the characters in this novel, as is the coastal environment by which they live. I suppose, at least, humans can usually leave their place of residence and seek a new life elsewhere.
This is a rare novel in that it focuses on the nation of Sri Lanka. At times it is evocative of such a place and such a time. But more often than not, it lacked a central depth by which to compare with the outside world. Touching, but only like a breeze.
This is a rare novel in that it focuses on the nation of Sri Lanka. At times it is evocative of such a place and such a time. But more often than not, it lacked a central depth by which to compare with the outside world. Touching, but only like a breeze.
December 29, 2010
Loved this book; paradise lost destroyed by man's greed and inhumanity. But there is a love story running through it and a passion for food cooked with love and care. It begins in a tropical paradise and ends in grey and wet London; sounds the wrong way round to me!
September 2, 2021
Fast 4
November 17, 2020
My knowledge of Sri Lankan politics is not good and this short novel set mostly on the island in the 1960s came at it obliquely, and I felt I might have got more out of the story if I had known more. The narrator - Triton - is a servant boy in a one-man household, eventually doing everything, including cooking, for Mr Salgado, a marine biologist. Triton becomes obsessed with Mr Salgado's girlfriend and listens in on evenings full of friends talking Sri Lankan politics - much of which, as I said, went over my head. But the descriptions of the food are wonderful.
March 18, 2017
The novel opens on the island of Ceylon. It is 1962 and in ten years' time the country's name will change to Sri Lanka. Triton is an 11-year old boy who accidentally sets fire to a thatched roof in his school compound. He is taken by his uncle to the house of the young bachelor Sanjan Salgado where he is to be employed as a lowly houseboy under the tyrannical rule of Joseph the head servant. Mr Salgado is a marine biologist with an obsessive interest in all things related to the ocean that encircles the island paradise -- in particular the nature, formation and fragility of the coral reef. Triton is inexperienced, unused to the alien ways of city life, and in awe of his enigmatic master. His simple duties consist of serving Mr Salgado's morning tea, and sweeping the veranda and the outside steps with an unwieldy broom twice as large as he is. But Triton is nothing if not resourceful. Soon he starts taking an interest in the old cook Lucy's kitchen activities, and before long she initiates him into the art of chopping onions. This is the beginning of Triton's life-long passion for the preparing and serving of sumptuous food. Later he turns the tables on Joseph, resulting in the obnoxious servant being fired by Mr Salgado. When Lucy retires to her jungle town, Triton starts coming into his own as a human being with a right to exist in a particular time and place, living only to serve his revered Mr Salgado to the best of his capabilities.
When the master befriends the beguiling hotel worker Nili, it soon becomes apparent that an intimate relationship is on the cards for the couple. Triton takes note of the developments with a keen observing eye. He certainly approves of the happiness experienced by Sanjan and Nili; but his constant awareness of Nili's mysterious feminine qualities, turning the hitherto easy going all-male household on its head (not to mention his growing need to be acknowledged and praised by her), release conflicting emotions in him. With time the three of them come to form a contained enclave of their own, frequently augmented by a blend of local and foreign friends and acquaintances descending on the Salgado house for holiday celebrations, poker parties and amiable speculation on the affairs of the day -- and the consuming of Triton's renowned gastronomical feasts and ice-cold beer. But in a country where uneasy political situations and ever-evolving civic unrest form an ominous part of the fiber of day-to-day living, the world these characters inhabit is as delicate as Mr Salgado's beloved coral reef and as prone to irrevocable change.
I am lost in admiration of Romesh Gunesekera's breath-taking prose. He is capable of the most sensuous descriptions concerning the preparation of food that I have ever come across. The passage detailing the creation of a love cake with ten eggs, creamed butter, honey and fresh cashew nuts is a miracle of evocative writing -- likewise his precise rendition of the careful consideration needed to ensure the perfect turkey bake. Gunesekera imbues his pages with the bite of chilies; the rich complexities of curry; the tartness of lime juice; and the subtle sweetness of coconut, and make one long for the taste of the succulent chicken curries and the exotic steamed parrot fish prepared by Triton. But the author is equally capable of a flint-sharp description of a visit to a morning fish market where blood and gore flow unchecked and fishermen calmly butcher a manta ray and a shark (and even an unfortunate dolphin) in uncompromising images.
On the strength of this elegiac debut by Romesh Gunesekera (shortlisted for the 1994 Booker Prize), I will be hunting down his subsequent novels and short story collections for a further taste of his unique talent. This is my book of the year so far, and I doubt that it will be eclipsed any time soon.
When the master befriends the beguiling hotel worker Nili, it soon becomes apparent that an intimate relationship is on the cards for the couple. Triton takes note of the developments with a keen observing eye. He certainly approves of the happiness experienced by Sanjan and Nili; but his constant awareness of Nili's mysterious feminine qualities, turning the hitherto easy going all-male household on its head (not to mention his growing need to be acknowledged and praised by her), release conflicting emotions in him. With time the three of them come to form a contained enclave of their own, frequently augmented by a blend of local and foreign friends and acquaintances descending on the Salgado house for holiday celebrations, poker parties and amiable speculation on the affairs of the day -- and the consuming of Triton's renowned gastronomical feasts and ice-cold beer. But in a country where uneasy political situations and ever-evolving civic unrest form an ominous part of the fiber of day-to-day living, the world these characters inhabit is as delicate as Mr Salgado's beloved coral reef and as prone to irrevocable change.
I am lost in admiration of Romesh Gunesekera's breath-taking prose. He is capable of the most sensuous descriptions concerning the preparation of food that I have ever come across. The passage detailing the creation of a love cake with ten eggs, creamed butter, honey and fresh cashew nuts is a miracle of evocative writing -- likewise his precise rendition of the careful consideration needed to ensure the perfect turkey bake. Gunesekera imbues his pages with the bite of chilies; the rich complexities of curry; the tartness of lime juice; and the subtle sweetness of coconut, and make one long for the taste of the succulent chicken curries and the exotic steamed parrot fish prepared by Triton. But the author is equally capable of a flint-sharp description of a visit to a morning fish market where blood and gore flow unchecked and fishermen calmly butcher a manta ray and a shark (and even an unfortunate dolphin) in uncompromising images.
On the strength of this elegiac debut by Romesh Gunesekera (shortlisted for the 1994 Booker Prize), I will be hunting down his subsequent novels and short story collections for a further taste of his unique talent. This is my book of the year so far, and I doubt that it will be eclipsed any time soon.
March 5, 2020
A story of the relationship between a young servant and his employer set in Ceylon in the years leading up to the civil war. Beautifully descriptive.
January 30, 2021
Once I got to read the book, I could not let go of it. Nice complex ploting. If you love food get the novel. However it is a love story narrated by a servant Triton. As Triton recounts his story between the love of his Mister and Miss Nill. A true feast of delight. I went through the book in just one day.
December 27, 2013
Firstly, when I read this book, I think of my fiction class mentor, who is this book's author, speaking to me. And it helps because I knew him as a person who sees humour and whackiness in ordinary things. Reef's strength is in its compelling yet simple language and the chemistry between the characters of Ranjan Salgodo and Triton, Ranjan and Nila, Triton and Joseph.
I thought that the part about Joseph running away from home could be developed into something more. The initial introduction of Joseph as the sinister lurking being of the house had been a potential for something more. I was a tad disappointed that he was made to easily disappear and Triton felt too simply, pleased at this.
My favourite take-aways from this book would be the references to Sri Lankan/Indian cooking and the ocean to explain the human condition. I thought this was the best part of the book.
"Are all oceans connected to one another?" I remembered Triton asking Salgado.
True enough, the book's ending about the separation of Salgado and Nila came to a conclusion with him deciding to find her again. The bit about how earth, people, wounds, salt were related to water. How Nila and Salgado are geographically separated but the fact that it is what 'we think we are' that always defines who we really in the end. And so Salgado will cross the ocean to find her because he had always been Nila's lover.
I thought that the part about Joseph running away from home could be developed into something more. The initial introduction of Joseph as the sinister lurking being of the house had been a potential for something more. I was a tad disappointed that he was made to easily disappear and Triton felt too simply, pleased at this.
My favourite take-aways from this book would be the references to Sri Lankan/Indian cooking and the ocean to explain the human condition. I thought this was the best part of the book.
"Are all oceans connected to one another?" I remembered Triton asking Salgado.
True enough, the book's ending about the separation of Salgado and Nila came to a conclusion with him deciding to find her again. The bit about how earth, people, wounds, salt were related to water. How Nila and Salgado are geographically separated but the fact that it is what 'we think we are' that always defines who we really in the end. And so Salgado will cross the ocean to find her because he had always been Nila's lover.
March 23, 2024
Beautiful and touching.
Everyday events against a backdrop of political upheavals. I love stories like these because this is how we experience the world as well. Here the narrator is a smart but uneducated boy who only picks things up from what he hears and sees (and reads, a skill he teaches himself). But aren't we all just a bit blind to our circumstances until things get dire, level of education notwithstanding?
This is exactly how I love learning about the world. Through human stories, real or imagined. The exquisite prose and frequent mentions of the most decadent, mouthwatering dishes further add to the beauty of it all.
Everyday events against a backdrop of political upheavals. I love stories like these because this is how we experience the world as well. Here the narrator is a smart but uneducated boy who only picks things up from what he hears and sees (and reads, a skill he teaches himself). But aren't we all just a bit blind to our circumstances until things get dire, level of education notwithstanding?
This is exactly how I love learning about the world. Through human stories, real or imagined. The exquisite prose and frequent mentions of the most decadent, mouthwatering dishes further add to the beauty of it all.
December 3, 2017
"It's not what we do every day but the thoughts we live with."
I think what I loved the most about this book was its beautiful and captivating prose - taking the reader to the Sri Lanka of the 70's and 80's and seeing it all through the eyes of a young boy who inevitably has to grow up.
I think what I loved the most about this book was its beautiful and captivating prose - taking the reader to the Sri Lanka of the 70's and 80's and seeing it all through the eyes of a young boy who inevitably has to grow up.
July 31, 2020
Let me tell you this : Ms. Chimamanda Adichie rightly called it a modern classic.
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