Panther

An intimate tale of friendship and betrayal at a boarding school in war-torn Sri Lanka.

'A fresh and promising new voice on the literary landscape' - The New Indian Express

I see you. Legs like toothpicks body and face all ribs and cheekbones. And that hair. Come on what is it? Like friggin' barbed wire. I see you with a hand-me-down cracked bat creaming a leather ball in a sock hanging from the branch of a mango tree.

Being accepted into an elite international school on a cricket scholarship doesn't mean your life is going to change. Except it does because hunky Indika - I for Indika I for Incredible - takes you under his wing drags you to posh restaurants and shows you pictures from glossy magazines of women who ... well never mind that's not the point. The point is: if your best friend snogs your girlfriend can he still be Incredible? Was he ever? But don't sweat the small stuff. There are cricket matches to win examinations to pass a horrifying past to forget a sinister schoolmaster to avoid ... and of course a first kiss to finally experience. Prabu's life is never going to be the same again.

Funny diamond-sharp and unapologetic Panther is a novel about that familiar fractured passage to adulthood that can make us magnificent if it does not kill us.