Shehan's best-selling debut novel Chinaman: The Legend of Pradeep Mathew won the Commonwealth Book Prize, the Gratiaen Prize and the DSC Prize for South Asian literature. He's published two novels and three children's books. And has written on sport, music and travel for the Guardian, Rolling Stone, Wisden, GQ, Conde Nast and National Geographic.
Shivantha is a singer, songwriter and actor hailing from the little island of Sri Lanka, the teardrop of the Indian ocean. Born in the UK, he lived in Sri Lanka, Hong Kong, Italy and Australia for much of his youth and grew up a child of the world. He moved to New York in 2009 to pursue his creative careers and studied at America's oldest acting conservatory, The American Academy of Dramatic Arts. Since then, he has won Best Supporting Actor (Last Game) and Best Actor (Death Trail) at the Asians On Film Festival in 2012 and 2019 respectively. A Lothario's Lament, a short he starred in, premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2014, and he worked with Golden Globe winner/Academy Award nominee Mira Nair on a reading of Monsoon Wedding. Most recently, he played the role of Jegan in Oscar nominee Deepa Mehta's 2020 film Funny Boy, which is now a hit sensation on Netflix.