The Good for Nothing

Dive into a world of stories - fearless, honest, and startlingly vivid.

 Having enjoyed the wedding to the fullest, my mother boasted so much about the wealth and the classiness of her cousins and the details of how they had thrown the party. It seemed that champagne was flowing across the main hall of the Galle Face Hotel while the mouth-watering finger food stacked up in big plates were whacked by the elegantly dressed social butterflies of Cinnamon Gardens. Dashman was as beautiful as a Greek goddess in her most fashionable wedding dress designed by a British woman living in Colombo.

My mother had enough material to talk non-stop for two weeks. She especially paid visits to her two less fortunate brothers living close to our neighbourhood, who were not invited, with wedding cakes for them that she had grabbed from the function and to tell them, particularly their even poorer wives, about the details of the wedding.

Welcome to Moratuwa's working class world. The Good For Nothing shows us the courage, intelligence, humour and tenacity found in abundance in these modest worlds. In his debut collection, Sathis de Mel gives us a realistic serio-comic portrayal of suburban Sri Lankans. An amusing yet sensitive read that reveals the frality of human emotions.

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Sathis de Mel was born in Moratuwa and brought up in Moratuwa and Galle. Hailing from a family of writers, Sathis had his education in Galle and Colombo. Having cut his teeth in the historical silk route port Galle,the multicultural city, and multi-religious Moratuwa, Sathis has, in consequence, shaped his perspectives and values on ethnic and religious relations. He lives in Moratuwa with his wife - a former school teacher, and social-anthropologist daughter.