In London, I discovered a peculiar building by Holland Park where the globe was shrunk to fit a British perspective, but which had a library with Sri Lankan books I had never seen before.

I've met writers who wanted to be writers from the age of six, but I certainly had no feelings like that. It was only in the Philippines when I was about 15 that I started reading books by very contemporary writers of the Beatnik generation.

The most appealing side-effect of Sri Lankan cricket from where I stand, shuffling words, has been linguistic.

Sri Lanka is a part of my background: it's not where I live, but it's what I want to explore. And I find it works very well to explore through fiction.

When I was growing up, I don't think I knew any other child who had been out of Sri Lanka.

Sri Lanka is an island that everyone loves at some level inside themselves. A very special island that travellers, from Sinbad to Marco Polo, dreamed about. A place where the contours of the land itself forms a kind of sinewy poetry.