- The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida wins the Booker Prize for fiction.
- Shehan Karunatilaka’s second book is about a war photographer killed in Sierra Leone.
- The 47-year-old was presented with the trophy at a ceremony in London.
The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida, Shehan Karunatilaka’s second book about a war photographer killed in the nation’s civil conflict, has been chosen as the winner of the prestigious Booker Prize for fiction.
During a ceremony on Monday evening in London, Karunatilaka was presented with a trophy by Queen Consort Camilla. It was the first live ceremony for the English-language literature prize since 2019. The 47-year-old author will also receive an award of 50,000 pounds ($56,700).
Seven Moons is a 1990 drama about a gay war photographer and gambler named Maali Almeida who wakes up dead and sets out to find out who killed him.
Maali has “seven moons” to contact loved ones and direct them to concealed pictures he has taken showing the horror of the island’s sectarian conflict, thus time is of the essence.
My aim with Seven Moons is that it will be read in a Sri Lanka that has realized 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’s written in Sri Lanka that learns from its tales and that Seven Moons will be located 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 winning in 1992 for The English Patient, which was ultimately made into a hit movie, Karunatilaka is the second Sri Lankan to receive the honor.
The head of the judging panel, Neil MacGregor, described Seven Moons as “an afterlife noir that melts the barriers of life and death, body and spirit, east and west, not simply of different genres.”
It was a “whodunnit and a race against time, filled with ghosts, humor, and a deep humanism,” according to the judges.
The ceremony, the first in-person Booker event since 2019, was attended by all but one of the six authors who made the shortlist.
Alan Garner, an Englishman who turned 88 on Monday, made a virtual appearance.
NoViolet Bulawayo from Zimbabwe, Percival Everett and Elizabeth Strout from the United States, and Claire Keegan from Ireland were also among the authors that made the shortlist.
The Booker, which was first given out in 1969, is the most prestigious literary prize for English-language books in the United Kingdom. Salman Rushdie, Margaret Atwood, and Hilary Mantel were among the past winners, while South African Damon Galgut took home the honor the previous year.
Mantel, who passed away last month at 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 woman to win the award twice.
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