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Shehan Karunatilaka
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CHINAMAN Paperback – International Edition, January 1, 2012

by Shehan Karunatilaka (Author)
4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 405 ratings
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Chinaman
Previous page
  1. Language
    English
  2. Publisher
    Vintage
  3. Publication date
    January 1, 2012
  4. Dimensions
    5.08 x 0.98 x 7.8 inches
  5. ISBN-10
    0099555689
  6. ISBN-13
    978-0099555681
  7. See all details
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Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Vintage (January 1, 2012)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0099555689
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0099555681
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 12.6 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.08 x 0.98 x 7.8 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 405 ratings

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Shehan Karunatilaka

Shehan Karunatilaka

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Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5 stars
4.4 out of 5
405 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

E. G. Platter
5.0 out of 5 stars 100 not out
Reviewed in the United States on January 10, 2017
Verified Purchase
Brilliant. On Sri Lankan politics, history, food and drink, all wrapped up in a cricket kit bag. The search for a possibly mythical, devastatingly gifted spin bowler by an alcoholic sports writer. Sounds most unpromising doesn't it? Stuffed, too, with the sort of stats and analyses perhaps only cricket lovers would love. But one of my books of 2016.
4 people found this helpful
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Indoor mike
4.0 out of 5 stars Great insight into Sri lankan history
Reviewed in the United States on November 13, 2012
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May not be suitable for pele who know anything about cricket but worth reading even if you don't to get insight into the Sri lankan factions
One person found this helpful
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Nirav Kanodra
5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant book on Cricket, Sri Lanka and mystery spin
Reviewed in the United States on January 18, 2015
Verified Purchase
I have watched cricket closely for 25 years, and I tried figuring out who the real Pradeep Mathew is.
This book covers cricket, Sri Lankan politics and racial divide, and has brilliant prose.
The words describing Duckworth-Lewis rule or beauty of left arm spin are not just poetic but magical
One person found this helpful
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moondog1
5.0 out of 5 stars Perfect for the manly reader
Reviewed in the United States on December 16, 2013
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I bought this book for my husband as a requested birthday present. He had started reading it (this is the original title, and he was reading the newer version). He wanted it in hard copy and just loves this book.
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Patricia Harrison
3.0 out of 5 stars An interesting concept
Reviewed in the United States on March 25, 2013
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I enjoyed the story but found the constsnt change in time irritating. I have recommended it to my cricket tragic daughter
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Hande Z
4.0 out of 5 stars It is cricket after all
Reviewed in the United States on June 5, 2013
This novel, subsequently reprinted under the more appropriate title, "The Legend of Pradeep Mathew" is about an old sports writer, Wijedasa Gamini Karunasena (or "Wije" as his friends call him) and his search for a forgotten Sri Lankan cricket hero, Pradeep Sivanathan Mathew. The "Chinaman" is the description of a cricket bowling manoeuvre) When Wije was diagnosed with liver failure and given a poor diagnosis he decided to make a documentary film about Pradeep Mathew. Throughout the book, Wije would lament his giving up alcohol on account of his health ("After fifty years of distinguished liver abuse, I, W.G. Karunasena , gave up booze."). He continues to sing praises of drink and drinking - "Has alcohol brought misery to humanity or kept it at bay?"

The story is replete with cricket players, cricket matches, and cricket terminology but far from being intimidating to a non-cricket player, the author unfolds them all with clarity and panache. "The Duckworth-Lewis method of resolving rain-affected games has divided the cricketing fraternity into those who do not understand it and those who pretend they do." No wonder the philosopher C E M Joad described cricket as a game for two (batsman and bowler) played by 22 players.

Some of the jokes might not be original but they fit perfectly into the story in Karunatilaka's hands: "It begins with the alcohol counselor two days after I am discharged. Before we go, Sheila [Wije's wife] gives me an article from "The Lanka Woman" on "How to overcome a Drinking Problem". `I didn't know that Lankan women had drinking problems,' I snort. `They do. They're called husbands.' Unlike me Sheila doesn't laugh at her own jokes."

Karunatilaka inclines us to respect unsung heroes in sport, and sympathise with unfulfilled writers who pickle their livers with alcohol. He exposes the hypocrisy of the aristocratic class and shows us that the world is just like a zoo, where "the animals are as shabby as the people looking at them." The author is a spinner of a great tale in which he alludes to Sri Lanka's troubled history and the war with the Tamil Tigers, but his accounts of fights between cricketers are hilarious. The story begins with Wije's quixotic search for Pradeep Mathew, and if not for the snippets of information concerning his past, one might suspect that that man does not exist. By the end of the book, one might even wonder whether this was a story about Wije's documentary on Pradeep Mathew - or Pradeep Mathew's biography of Wijedasa the sports writer.
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Lakshan Perera
5.0 out of 5 stars I haven't really read a novel cover to cover before
Reviewed in the United States on July 4, 2013
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Enjoyed almost every bit of it. Combines the very same passions, skepticisms, beliefs and experiences I have as a Sri Lankan. This was a much needed read for me. Thanks Shehan!
2 people found this helpful
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Deborah Stoner
5.0 out of 5 stars Intriguing
Reviewed in the United States on October 11, 2019
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Personal reading.
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Top reviews from other countries

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christopher hugh courtenay
5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 3, 2023
Verified Purchase
A great read.
WOB - usual excellent service.
All good!
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Taschen-Liebhaber
4.0 out of 5 stars Amazing writer, but only for people versed with the rules of Cricket
Reviewed in Germany on April 5, 2023
Verified Purchase
I read this book after reading the author's second book, the Seven Moons of Mali Almeida. I love his writing style, but this book only makes sense to read if you know how Cricket works. Otherwise its a bit difficult to follow.
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Prem Kumar
5.0 out of 5 stars An Ode to Sport
Reviewed in India on April 8, 2017
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Everyone who follows sport has encountered this inevitable question from family and friends at least once: What is the point of sport? The question acquires an edge especially when one does not play the sport or in any other way benefit from watching it. This amazing novel is a long, rambling attempt to answer this question and as a result it is an ode to sport. It is also the great Sri Lankan novel we have been waiting for as it intimates us with the culture and recent history of the country and the exaggerated role Cricket plays in its life.

WG Karunasena is an alcoholic Cricket journalist who in his heydays had written for the best journals in the country and abroad although he is largely ignored now. He is a lover of sports who sees beauty in “free kicks, late cuts, slam dunks, tries from halfway, and balls that turn from off to leg”. He is a drunk too claims that alcohol has rid him of cliches and made him into a better writer and unabashedly admires the "drug refined over the centuries by all civilizations".

But he is dying. Thanks to his prolonged drinking habit. However to make the most of the remainder of his ever shortening life he has embarked on a quest to discover Pradeep S. Matthew, an elusive chinaman bowler who has been erased from the cricketing history who he considers as the greatest cricketer ever. On this quest WG discovers startling truths about Sri Lanka, cricket and himself. In the process he tries to answer the above mentioned question about the significance of sport. Time is short and we as readers are not sure whether he will manage to make it that long but he is confident as he philosophically puts it "there is nothing as inspiring as a solid deadline".

Sri Lanka is in the middle of a civil war, a consequence of the high-handedness of the Sinhala majority who "knew the Tamils could out-bat, out-think, out-everything" them. Amidst this war cricket is the only outlet for normalcy and the country is indeed blessed with a talented bunch of cricketers one of whom is Pradeep Matthew. A Tamil he practices the rare art of left-arm chinaman and owner of numerous mystery deliveries including the unearthly double-bounce ball. However he does have a reputation for brushing the people in authority including fellow players the wrong way and after a promising start to his career has mysteriously disappeared. But WG knows he is a genius as he has watched him live in a match where he bamboozled the visiting team by taking 9 wickets including his famed delivery. The match is abandoned for some political reason and it is forgotten in everyone’s mind except WG’s who is now inspired to discover him and write about him.

WG is aided by his friend Ari and together they embark on this quest overcoming major squabbles (‘Murali chucks or not?’) and talking to various people connected to Pradeep including his family, fellow players and coaches. In the middle of this quest comes the 1996 world cup and to everyone’s surprise Sri Lanka "whack the cup" and cricket becomes even more popular in the country. Monetary rewards chase the players, even lesser known ones become millionaires, except Pradeep that is, who stays out of it all and thereafter undergoes a slide in form and finally disappears. The rest of the book is about if and how WG tracks Pradeep down, how he comes to term with his family and whether he will have a happy ending to his life’s innings.

The book is remarkable about its insight into sport as WG admits that "Of course there is little point to sports" but hastily adds "there is little point to anything. In a thousand years, grass will have grown over all our cities. Nothing of anything will matter." But sport he says produces magical moments that can be remembered for hundreds of years and that is the whole point of sports. As he puts it…

“Sport can unite worlds, tear down walls, and transcend race, the past and all probability. Unlike life, sport matters.”

It’s a beautiful sentiment and one that we sport lovers can use to counter when someone inevitably questions why we follow sport.

The novel also explores the state of the Lankan nation and also on the Sinhala-Tamil tension. He laments the Murphy’s law of nations which Sri Lanka seems to have followed where by the colonized country becomes a parody of the colonizers and instead of inheriting their good traits they inherit their bad ones. As he ruefully says "we inherit the power lust of our conquerors but none of their vision". This I dare say is true of India too.

Although the British as part of their ‘divide and conquer’ policy created a fissure between the communities, "by the 1950s, we begin to develop our own dangerous ideas without any foreign assistance. The idea that the nation belongs to the Sinhala or that Tamil deserve a separate state." The novel cites the example of India which despite more diversity has managed to create a united, peaceful state. Finally the author compares how similar the two communities indeed are and hopes for a reconciliation in the not too distant future.

In the end, this novel can be described as the arrival of Sri Lankan literature in English, indeed it is the ‘Great Sri Lankan Novel’ and all that English literature aficionados like us can do is echo that famous quote ‘Let a thousand flowers bloom’.
3 people found this helpful
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Aadhil Aziz
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent read!!
Reviewed in Australia on May 16, 2016
Verified Purchase
One of those books that just sucks you right in. Could not put it down!
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Amazon Kunde
4.0 out of 5 stars Anstrengend
Reviewed in Germany on March 17, 2023
Verified Purchase
Es war unheimlich anstrengend das zu lesen - ich habe zwischendrin the seven moons... gelesen
Insgesamt war das Buch sehr gut, aber auf Englisch wirklich anstrengend.
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