Romesh Gunesekera was born in Sri Lanka, and has been living and writing in London since the 1970s. This is his second story to feature in the BritLit project and was developed during his recent tour of schools in Portugal.

'Carapace' is a simple story of a girl whose mother has grand plans for her marriage to a man she has never met. The situation is complicated by two factors: she has a boyfriend, who has a very relaxed attitude to what is happening; she doesn't want to make any decisions. But does she really have a choice anyway? Or is she looking to Vijay to help her decide?

Students are introduced to the characters and asked to try and resolve some of the dilemmas surrounding personal relationships. They also get to deal with some mouth-watering Sri Lankan recipes, for Vijay is a cook, as well as gain a brief overview of the country where the story is based.

Downloads

• Short story 27k pdf Complete text of Carapace

• Introduction for teachers 95k pdf

• Characterisation 355k pdf Character based activities

• Context 792k pdf Background information and exercises

• Word Work 204k pdf Language activities

• After reading exercises 414k pdf Follow-up and consolidation

• Answer key 206k pdf Teacher's notes for activities.

Audio Files

• Audio 10.3Mb MP3 Story read by the author (Better quality) - not available

• Audio 5.16Mb carapace MP3 Story read by the author Romesh Gunesekera (Smaller file)

To download audio, right click on audio file in the Attachment below and save to your computer.