Sri Lanka’s Shehan Karunatilaka in longlist for prestigious Booker literary prize

Shehan Karunatilaka

Sri Lanka’s Shehan Karunatilaka is among the 13 longlist for the prestigious Booker literary prize. Shehan has been short listed for his “The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida” a rip-roaring epic is a

searing, mordantly funny satire set amid the murderous mayhem of a Sri Lanka beset by civil war.

Shehan, a former Commonwealth Booker winner, is considered one of Sri Lanka’s foremost authors. In addition to his novels, he has written rock songs, screenplays and travel stories.

The judges of the prize announced the short list of 13 novels on Tuesday drawn from an initial total of 169 novels submitted by publishers – includes discussion of contemporary themes such as the COVID pandemic and questions of racial and gender injustice. The list will be further shortened by 6 September and the final award will be announced on 17 October, AFP reported. 

The Booker is Britain’s foremost literary award for novels written in English. Its previous recipients include Salman Rushdie, Margaret Atwood and Hilary Mantel. The longlist includes six Americans, two authors from Britain and Ireland each, one Argentine, and one Zimbabwean.

The award ceremony in London coincides with the 88th birthday of Alan Garner, who made his name with children’s fantasy titles and folk retellings. After six decades in print, the Englishman earns his first Booker nod this year for “Treacle Walker”. 

Meanwhile at the age of 20, US author Leila Mottley has been longlisted for “Nightcrawling”. Mottley is one of three debut novelists on the list, alongside Britain’s Maddie Mortimer (“Maps of our Spectacular Bodies”) and American writer Selby Wynn Schwartz (“After Sappho”).

At 116 pages, Irish author Claire Keegan’s “Small Things Like These” is the shortest novel recognised in the Booker prize’s 53-year history. 

NoViolet Bulawayo, Karen Joy Fowler and Graeme Macrae Burnet are previously shortlisted authors who made the grade this year.

But some notable names were absent, including Jennifer Egan, Ian McEwan and Hanya Yanagihara, with the judges leaning particularly towards smaller, independent publishers.

African authors have been ascendant in English-language fiction, scooping the Nobel, Booker and Goncourt prizes last year. If the trend continues, that could favour “Glory” by Zimbabwe’s Bulawayo on the Booker list for 2022, which features eight women and five men.