Ashok Ferrey Ordre des livres (chronologique)

A wicked tale of the devil in all of us establishes Ferrey as one of the subcontinent’s wittiest voices. ‘I was born ugly. That’s what my mother always said.’ So begins the story of young Sonny Mahadewala who lives a dual life: between his adoptive England where he lives in eccentric union with a privileged American, and the mixed bliss of the Mahadewala Walauwa, the big house on the mountain belonging to his father’s family in Kandy – the ancient capital of Sri Lanka – where he has both cachet and awful memories. For Sonny’s mother, a wonderfully maleficent anti-heroine, is convinced that demons possess this awfully ugly son of hers. Demons and the devil himself are the playing field of this book, whether seated in the draughty chapels of Oxford or roaming the Kandyan countryside and through their clever interplay they speak of larger horrors with able grace. For who is utterly good or utterly evil—and who, indeed, is the devil?

Our Sri Lankan narrator visits his friend Joe in Italy, where Joe attends a special course—in higher (or, shall we say, lower) studies in women. Italians—much like Sri Lankans—live at home through marriage, death, and sometimes even beyond the pale. An accompanying string of fake fiancés and phoney engagements are the backdrop to this delightful collection of darkly humorous tales about Sri Lankans at home and abroad. Long years and many miles away, Colombo’s Father Cruz attempts to rescue a church from parishioners who like to put their donations where others can see them—on large plaques; on the coast, a retired Admiral escapes the tsunami on an antique Dutch cabinet; two childhood sweethearts, in time-honoured Sri Lankan tradition, are married off to strangers.Ashok Ferrey writes about Sri Lanka and its people, wherever they roam, with remarkable acuity. He writes of the West’s effect on Sri Lankans, of its ‘turning them into caricatures, unmistakably genuine but not at all the real thing’. In The Good Little Ceylonese Girl, his second collection of stories, he shows us the reality beyond those feeble sketches, in its full glory.