Sri Lankan author Shehan Karunatilaka wins Booker Prize

Karunatilaka, 47, became only the second Sri Lankan-born novelist to win the £50,000 literary prize at a ceremony in London on Monday night, after Michael Ondaatje who won for ‘The English Patient’ in 1992

Sri Lankan author Shehan Karunatilaka has won the prestigious 2022 Booker Prize for his second novel ‘The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida’, an afterlife thriller set against the backdrop of the country’s brutal civil war.

Karunatilaka, 47, became only the second Sri Lankan-born novelist to win the £50,000 literary prize at a ceremony in London on Monday night, after Michael Ondaatje who won for ‘The English Patient’ in 1992.

‘The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida’, described by judges as a whodunnit and a race against time, full of ghosts, gags and deep humanity, tells the story of the photographer of its title, who in 1990 wakes up dead in what seems like a celestial visa office. With no idea who killed him, Maali has seven moons to contact the people he loves most and leads them to a hidden cache of photos of civil war atrocities that will rock Sri Lanka.

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“My hope is that in the not too distant future... Sri Lanka has understood that these ideas of corruption and race-baiting and cronyism have not worked and will never work,” said Karunatilaka.

The author also referred to the recent stabbing in New York of fellow Booker Prize-winning author, Salman Rushdie, and said it is something that “hangs over all of us if we’re writing in South Asia, especially writing about politics or religion”.

Karunatilaka and this year’s other shortlisted authors, NoViolet Bulawayo, Percival Everett, Claire Keegan and Elizabeth Strout, were all in attendance at the Roundhouse in London, with Alan Garner attending virtually.

Karunatilaka’s £50,000 prize money and newly designed trophy were presented to him by last year’s winner Damon Galgut, along with a designer-bound edition of his book and the £2,500 given to each shortlisted author.

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