Beggar’s Feast

Boyagoda’s winding second novel (after Governor of the Northern Province) tells the story of a Sri Lankan village boy who spends his entire life remaking himself. A few years after his parents give him to a monastery, not long into the 20th century, the boy, 13, renames himself Sam Kandy and flees to the capital city of Colombo, where he begins his shady journey to success. Starting as an apprentice to a hustler, Sam uses his cunning to make a profit, and then boards a ship for Australia. From Colombo to Sydney to Singapore and back, Sam uses a combination of blackmail and sweet talk to make himself an underworld king—not respected, but feared. He takes advantage of the desires of colonialists and the desperation of his own countrymen and, in 1930, becomes one of the first native Sri Lankans to own an automobile (something that was, at the time, illegal). By the end of Sam Kandy’s century-long life, the only thing he has stayed true to, through multiple names, schemes, wives, and children, is his commitment to leaving the past behind. Told in prose as circuitous as Sam’s life, this at-times affected novel reveals just how much can be laid to waste through one man’s need to get ahead. Agent: Bruce Westwood, Westwood Creative Artists. (Oct.)