Sri Lankan author Shehan Karunatilaka wins Booker Prize 2022 for supernatural satire
Sri Lankan writer Shehan Karunatilaka
The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Sri Lankan author Shehan Karunatilaka has won the Booker prize for fiction. His debut novel, Chinaman, was published in 2011. The book is a supernatural satire set amid a murderous Sri Lankan civil war. Queen Consort Camilla presented the prize, while pop singer Dua Lipa was the star guest.
The ceremony was hosted by comedian Sophie Duker at the Roundhouse in London. Last year’s winner Damon Galgut presented Karunatilaka with a prize money of £50,000 ($56,708). Karunatilaka is now the second Sri Lankan-born author to win the Booker Prize after Michael Ondaatje, who won in 1992 for The English Patient.
Also Read |Alan Garner, NoViolet Bulawayo, and four others shortlisted for Booker prize 2022
The Booker-winning novel is about a photographer who wakes up dead in 1990 in supposedly a celestial visa office. He has no idea who killed him, and has seven moons to contact the people he loves most and lead them to a hidden cache of photos of civil war atrocities that will rock Sri Lanka.
The judges were all praise for the “ambition of its scope, and the hilarious audacity of its narrative techniques”. Neil MacGregor, chair of the judges for this year’s prize, said, “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."
Karunatilaka addressed the people of Sri Lanka in Tamil and Sinhalese. “I write these books for you… Let’s keep sharing these stories.”
He also said that he hopes the political situation in the country improves and that one day his book will “sit on the fantasy shelves of bookshops”.
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The writer told how he decided in 2009 to write "a ghost story where the dead could offer their perspective" following the end of Sri Lankan civil war. He said that "there was a raging debate over how many civilians died and whose fault it was".
Talking about his other works, he said how he self-censored a few of his short stories after Salman Rushdie was stabbed at an event in August.
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. They will received £2,500 ($2,835) each.
(With inputs from agencies)
