This collection of short stories juxtaposes the cold violence of 1960s crime with a girl's first day at nursery, while the descent of an immigrant ruined by drinking, loneliness and paedophilic tendencies appears next to a bittersweet tale of teenage growing pains, against a 70s backdrop of Thalidomide and Elvis. What they have in common is a cast of south London Sri Lankan characters who struggle to fit in in Britian, but no longer belong in Sri Lanka.

"Her demands of Sri Lanka were as stringent as her demands of England. She had an impression of the way the countries should be, the way their inhabitants should behave," Preethi observes, and as we watch her growing from teenager to contented mother but disappointed wife, we are at once surprised by the unpredictability of human behaviour and moved by people's longing to belong.

Roshi Fernando, winner of the 2009 Impress prize, doesn't shirk from the harsh realities of the outcast, but this collection of stories is tender, uplifting and funny, too.