Sri Lankan Author Shehan Karunatilaka’s “The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida” Wins This Year’s Booker Prize. Details Here

“The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida”, written by Shehan Karunatilaka, about a journalist killed in the midst of the nation’s sectarian conflict, was awarded the Booker Prize for fiction in Britain on Monday.

My hope with Seven Moons is that it will be read in a Sri Lanka that has realised that ideas like corruption, race-baiting, and cronyism have never worked and will never work in the not-too-distant future.

I hope it’s published in ten years, but if it is, I hope it was written in a Sri Lanka that learns from its tales, and that Seven Moons will be found in the fantasy section of the bookstore, next to the dragons and unicorns, and won’t be misconstrued for realism or political satire, he continued.

Following Michael Ondaatje’s triumph for “The English Patient” in 1992, Karunatilaka, 47, is the second Sri Lankan to get the honour.

Winning the Booker can change a career beyond the £50,000 ($56,000) prize by increasing sales and public exposure.

The novel is “an afterlife noir that breaks the barriers not merely of different genres, but of life and death, body and soul, east and west,” according to chair of judges Neil MacGregor.

The tale takes place in Colombo in the late 1980s, during the chaos of a civil war.
After being killed, war photographer and gambler Maali Almeida decides to use her seven moons in the afterlife to figure out who killed her and reveal the brutality of the war.

It was described as a “whodunnit and a race against time, full of ghosts, humour, and a deep humanism” by the Booker Prize jury.

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A tribute to Mantel

Chinaman, Karunatilaka’s first book, was chosen for the BBC and The Reading Agency’s Big Jubilee Read last year and won the Commonwealth Prize.

The Booker had not held a sizable in-person event prior to the London award ceremony since 2019.

One of Queen Consort Camilla’s most high-profile appearances since her husband King Charles III came to the throne last month, she presented the prize at the broadcast ceremony.

Karunatilaka quipped as he accepted the trophy, “Without wanting to sound corny, we are all winners for being part of this amazing shortlist, though, perhaps I might pocket the extra cash if that’s okay?”

Singer-songwriter Dua Lipa also gave a speech at the nighttime event.

With the exception of one, all six of the shortlisted authors were present in person. Alan Garner, an Englishman who turned 88 on Monday, appeared virtually.

Garner, who is most known for his children’s fantasy books and folktale retellings, was chosen for “Treacle Walker,” the finalist novel with the fewest words.

NoViolet Bulawayo, who wrote “Glory,” an animal story based in her home Zimbabwe, was one of the other authors shortlisted.

The inclusion of American Percival Everett for “Trees” gave independent publisher Influx Press its first spot on the Booker shortlist.

The shortlist was completed by “Small Things Like These” by Irish author Claire Keegan and “Oh William!” by fellow American author Elizabeth Strout.

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The Booker is the top literary honour given to English-language novels in Britain.

Salman Rushdie, Margaret Atwood, and Hilary Mantel are just a few of its previous honorees.

Mantel, who passed away last month at the age of 70, was given a special homage during the event on Monday.

With the first two books in her “Wolf Hall” trilogy, she became the first British author and first woman to win the award twice.

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