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Sri Lankan writer Shehan Karunatilaka (left) poses next to Britain's Queen Consort Camilla (right) after winning the British Booker Prize for his novel “The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida”, during the Booker Prize for Fiction 2022 awards ceremony, in London, on 17 October – AFP
Writer Shehan Karunatilaka won the prestigious Booker Prize for his novel ‘The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida’ at a glitzy ceremony held in London yesterday. The winning book is a satirical supernatural story set during Sri Lanka’s brutal civil war.
Karunatilaka was awarded the 50,000 British pound prize by the Queen Consort Camilla. He is the second Sri Lankan author to win the Booker, with the first being Michael Ondaatje, who won in 1992 with The English Patient.
Previously Shehan also won the Commonwealth Book Prize, the DSL and Gratiaen Prize for his debut novel, Chinaman.
Adjudging the novel as the winner, 2022 judges panel Chair Neil MacGregor said that any one of the six shortlisted books would have been a worthy winner. “What the judges particularly admired and enjoyed in The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida was the ambition of its scope, and the hilarious audacity of its narrative techniques” he noted. He said the judge's decision had been unanimous.
Karunathilaka delivered a trilingual acceptance speech after being awarded the prize. He said while he had hoped to list out the names of journalists or activists killed in Sri Lanka by Government mercenaries or others, it would have taken all night since it is an in exhaustive list.
“My hope for Seven Moons is this. That in the not-too-distant future, that it is read in a Sri Lanka that has understood that these ideas of corruption and race-baiting and cronyism have not worked and will never work. I hope it is read in Sri Lanka where it learns from its stories and that Seven Moons will be in the fantasy section in the bookshop and will not be mistaken by readers for political satire,” he said.
“I want to say this to the people of Sri Lanka. I wrote this book for you. This is a win at a time the country has been defeated. We have lost but it is ok. The people of Sri Lanka are suffering today. I do not have the necessary weapons to end that suffering but let us accept this win.” he added.
The novel was first published as ‘Chats with the Dead’. However, it was later revised to make it more accessible to an international audience. It tells the story of Maali Almeida, a war photographer, gambler and closet gay who has woken up dead in what seems to be a celestial visa office during the height of the Sri Lanka war. In the novel, he has a week to ask his friends to find his photos and expose the brutality of war.
Born in Galle, Sri Lanka, in 1975, Karunatilaka grew up in Colombo, studied in New Zealand and has lived and worked in London, Amsterdam and Singapore. He currently lives in Sri Lanka. His work has been published in Rolling Stone, GQ and National Geographic. In addition to his novels, he has written rock songs, screenplays and travel stories. He has worked as an advertising copywriter and played guitar in a band called Independent Square.
