18th October, 2022
By Nehru Odeh
Sri Lankan author Shehan Karunatilaka has won the 2022 Booker Prize for fiction for his novel, ‘The Seven Moons of Maali Ameida.’
The judges, who were unanimous in their decision, praised the “ambition of its scope, and the hilarious audacity of its narrative techniques”. They also described the novel as a “rollercoaster journey through life and death.”
By achieving this feat, Karunatilaka becomes the second Sri Lankan-born author to win, following Michael Ondaatje, who won in 1992 with The English Patient.
The Booker award-winning novel tells the story of Maali Almeida, a photographer who in 1990 wakes up dead in what seems like a celestials visa office.
Having no idea who killed him, Maali has seven moons to contact the people he loves lead them to a hidden cache of photos of civil war atrocities that will rock Sri Lanka.
Neil MacGregor, chair of the judges for this year’s prize, said the novel was chosen because “it’s a book that takes the reader on a rollercoaster journey through life and death right to what the author describes as the dark heart of the world”.
“And there the reader finds, to their surprise, joy, tenderness, love and loyalty,” he added.
MacGregor was joined on the judging panel by academic and broadcaster Shahidha Bari; historian Helen Castor; novelist and critic M John Harrison; and novelist, poet and professor Alain Mabanckou.
Receiving his prize, Karunatilaka addressed the people of Sri Lanka in Tamil and Sinhalese. He summarised what he said in English: “I write these books for you… Let’s keep sharing these stories.”
He said he hopes that one day the political situation in Sri Lanka will be such that his novel will “sit on the fantasy shelves of bookshops”.
“There’s a Sri Lankan gallows humour… we’ve been through a lot of catastrophes,”Karinatilaka maintained.
The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida is published by the independent press Sort of Books. This year is the first time a book by the publisher has been longlisted for the prize.
An interesting feature of this year’s award is that the original 1969 Booker prize trophy was reinstated in memory of its creator, the children’s author and illustrator Jan Pieńkowski, who died in February.
The trophy was presented to Karunatilaka by Camilla, the Queen Consort, in one of her first official public engagements since she took on her new role, at a ceremony hosted by comedian Sophie Duker at the Roundhouse in London. Last year’s winner Damon Galgut presented Karunatilaka with his prize money of £50,000.
Karunatilaka, was born in Galle, Sri Lanka, in 1975 and grew up in Colombo. Chinaman won the Commonwealth prize, the DSL and the Gratiaen prize, and was selected for the BBC and The Reading Agency’s Big Jubilee Read. The author has also written rock songs and screenplays.
The other books on the shortlist were Glory by NoViolet Bulawayo, The Trees by Percival Everett, Treacle Walker by Alan Garner, Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan and Oh William! by Elizabeth Strout.
MacGregor said that although all six books on the shortlist were very different, “it became clear … that they were all really about one question, and that is ‘what’s the importance of an individual life?’”