Yosha Gunasekera is a Sri Lankan-American attorney who represents people who have spent decades behind bars for crimes they did not commit. She teaches a course at Princeton University focused on wrongful conviction and exoneration. Gunasekera is a former Manhattan public defender and has written and spoken extensively on the criminal legal system. She lives in New York City with her husband.
Her debut mystery is The Midnight Taxi.
At Electric Lit Gunasekera tagged seven Sri Lankan novels haunted by skeletons in the nation’s closet. One title on the list:
My Sweet Girl by Amanda JayatissaRead about the other titles on Gunasekera's list at Electric Lit.
Jayatissa’s My Sweet Girl is a sharply plotted psychological thriller. It centers on Paloma, a woman adopted from a Sri Lankan orphanage intoa vastly different life in the United States. But like most compelling thrillers, her adopted life is built on a buried truth and Paloma carries a secret that trails her like a shadow. Paloma’s roommate begins to uncover this past, but before Paloma can pay him for his silence, she finds him dead in their apartment. By the time police arrive, the body has disappeared. The novel’s ghosts include the past Paloma has tried so hard to outrun, the identity she tried to abandon, and the lingering spectre of people who refused to be erased. In My Sweet Girl, the truth always catches up and it never arrives quietly.
--Marshal Zeringue
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