Failed builder, indifferent mathematician, personal trainer to the rich and infamous (and writer): Ashok Ferrey, Sri Lanka

Hosts Tanya & Udhara talk to author of ‘Serendipity’, Ashok Ferrey, about his colourful life across many continents. He’s one of Sri Lanka’s best-selling authors in English and his latest book is ‘The Ceaseless Chatter of Demons’. This episode will show you how an interest in many different things, having several callings, can be an incredible asset.

Ashok Ferrey’s upbringing is as diverse as his interests: born in Colombo, raised in East Africa, educated at a Benedictine monastery in the wilds of Sussex. Ferrey studied maths at Oxford University, ending up in the south of London where he converted Victorian houses during the years Margaret Thatcher was in power.

Anyone who reads fiction in Sri Lanka will know Ferrey for his novels. When he’s not writing and training Sri Lanka’s ‘rich and infamous’, he designing houses and lectures on architecture.