Geoffrey Dobbs

At the 11th edition of the Galle Literary Festival (GLF), Booker Prize-winning author Shehan Karunatilaka hosted an elaborate gourmet dinner and arrack-tasting session at the Jetwing Lighthouse hotel’s Nihal’s restaurant. There, he read his prose poem, Arrack Attack — a 10-point primer on the virtues (and vices) of the distilled alcoholic drink made from the fermented sap of coconut flowers — and some passages from his first novel, Chinaman: The Legend of Pradeep Mathew. The Commonwealth Prize-winning book is rich with…