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Chinaman: The Legend of Pradeep Mathew

2010 novel by Shehan Karunatilaka

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 26, 2026
Entity authoritySource title only
Source-derived summary

Chinaman: The Legend of Pradeep Mathew is a 2010 novel by Shehan Karunatilaka. Using cricket as a device to write about Sri Lankan society, the book tells the story of an alcoholic journalist's quest to track down a missing cricketer of the 1980s. The novel was critically hailed on publication, winning awards and much positive review coverage.

Editorial summary

“Chinaman: The Legend of Pradeep Mathew” enters the record as 2010 novel by Shehan Karunatilaka. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Chinaman, Legend and Pradeep can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA useful identification and reception guide that helps separate the work itself from editions, performances, ownership and later interpretation. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2010—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Chinaman, Legend and Pradeep.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Chinaman: The Legend of Pradeep Mathew” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Chinaman, Legend and Pradeep provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 26, 2026. The first chronological checks are 2010.

Critical limits

Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Chinaman: The Legend of Pradeep Mathew”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Chinaman: The Legend of Pradeep Mathew primary sources, Chinaman: The Legend of Pradeep Mathew archive and Chinaman research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Chinaman: The Legend of Pradeep Mathew”?
  2. Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
  3. How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Chinaman: The Legend of Pradeep Mathew” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.