SOURCE: A review of Reef, in Boston Review, Vol. 20, No. 2, April, 1995, pp. 31-2.

[In the following review, Gordon discusses the Sri Lankan political history that informs Reef and argues that although he feels Gunesekera is "one of the two or three best writers I've encountered among my contemporaries," he has not convincingly integrated the political and the emotional realities of the story.]

In contemporary London, a Sri Lankan man stops at a gas station, pumps his gas, goes to pay. In the face of the boy in the cashier's booth, he sees a great familiarity, "almost a reflection" of his own. It is night, they are alone, and although compatriots, their only common language is English, of which the boy speaks little: the man is Sinhala, the boy Tamil, the two sides of their country's long civil war.

As they exchange a few words inside the lighted booth...