'Homesick', Roshi Fernando

Homesick, Roshi Fernando 

This collection of seventeen linked short stories won the 2009 Impress Prize for new writers and Fernando has subsequently been shortlisted for the Sunday Times EFG Private Bank Short Story Award. Fernando has said that her stories convey a 'sense of not belonging anywhere' and one of  collection's central characters, Preethi, expresses this when she says, 'Nowhere is home and it makes me angry.' There is something cinematic about the title story 'Homesick' which introduces several of the collection's characters at a New Year party; the story is one that, having finsihed the collection, a reader will want to come back to. Stories range from 'Mumtaz Chaplain', the story of a mute Muslim boy who loves Charlie Chaplain to 'The Bottle of Whisky' a story of violence and revenge. My favourite stories were 'The Clangers' in which Preethi and her Grandmother get lost on the way home from school and 'The Turtle' a story that delicately explores parenting an autistic child.

Read a review of Homesick here.
Read a review of Sunday Times EFG Private Bank Short Story Award nominated 'The Florescent Jacket' here.
I haven't been able to find any interviews with Fernando to link to.