Ashok Ferrey is the author of five books, all of them nominated either for Sri Lanka's Gratiaen Prize or its State Literary Award. He read pure mathematics at Oxford and was a builder in London before becoming a writer. Ashok Ferrey's new book, The Unmarriageable Man just won the Gratiaen Prize - Sri Lanka's premier literary prize founded by Michael Ondaatje.
In a parallel world Ashok is an architect whose last building, The Cricket Club Cafe, was nominated for a Geoffrey Bawa Award for Excellence in Architecture. By day Ashok is also a personal trainer.
"And herein lies the rub. I mean, once you get used to [technology], you absolutely cannot do without them. And then you wonder how you managed before. They are absolutely beautiful but what they also do is they take possession of your soul. Even the very fact of writing a novel on a computer. I think I must be the last person on Earth, well, maybe I'm not - I write with a pencil in an exercise book. Why? Because it seems to be more expendable. When you write on the computer, there's an air of finality about it. And I don't want that, because at that first draft stage, it's a slippery fish that can go in any direction."
