Panther

Prabu is a skinny boy with sharp cheekbones, wild hair and a battered hand-me-down bat. He practises by hitting a leather ball hung in a sock from a mango tree. When he wins a cricket scholarship to an elite international school, he expects little to change. Then he meets Indika, a handsome and confident boy who takes him under his wing, drags him to expensive restaurants and shows him glossy magazine pictures of women.

Prabu's new life is crowded. There are cricket matches to win and exams to pass. A terrible past is waiting to be forgotten, and a sinister schoolmaster is best avoided. He is also waiting for his first kiss. Then comes a harder question: if your best friend kisses your girlfriend, can he still be called incredible, and was he ever?

Chhimi Tenduf-La tells this story with a sharp, funny and unapologetic voice. Panther is a novel about the awkward, broken passage into adulthood, one that can make us magnificent if it does not destroy us first.