Sri Lankan author Shehan Karunatilaka has been named the winner of the 2022 Booker Prize for his second novel ‘The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida’.

Karunatilaka, 47, became only the second Sri Lankan born to win the prestigious £50,000 literary prize, after Michael Ondaatje who won for ‘The English Patient’ in 1992.

Karunatilaka received a trophy from Queen Consort Camilla at the English language literary award’s first in-person ceremony since 2019. 

Who is Shehan Karunatilaka?

• Shehan Karunatilaka is considered one of Sri Lanka’s foremost authors. In addition to his novels he has written rock songs, screenplays and travel stories.

• Shehan Karunatilaka emerged on to the global literary stage in 2011, when he won the Commonwealth Book Prize, the DSL and Gratiaen Prize for his debut novel ‘Chinaman’. The book was declared the second-best cricket book of all time by Wisden.

• Born in Galle, Sri Lanka, in 1975, Karunatilaka grew up in Colombo, studied in New Zealand and has lived and worked in London, Amsterdam and Singapore. He currently lives in Sri Lanka. His songs, scripts and stories have been published in Rolling Stone, GQ and National Geographic.

• ‘The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida’ is his second novel. 

What is the book about?

• During the height of the Sri Lankan civil war, Maali Almeida, war photographer, gambler and closet gay, has woken up dead in what seems to be a celestial visa office. His dismembered body is sinking in the Beira Lake in central Colombo and he has no idea who killed him.

• At a time when scores are settled by death squads, suicide bombers and hired goons, the list of suspects is depressingly long.

• But even in the afterlife, time is running out for Maali. He has ‘seven moons’ to find out who killed him and to try and contact the man and woman he loves most in order to lead them to a hidden cache of photos that will rock Sri Lanka. 

• It is a metaphysical thriller, an afterlife noir that dissolves the boundaries not just of different genres, but of life and death, body and spirit, east and west. It is an entirely serious philosophical romp that takes the reader to the murderous horrors of civil war in Sri Lanka. And once there, the reader also discovers the tenderness and beauty, the love and loyalty, and the pursuit of an ideal that justify every human life.

Other books in the shortlist

• ‘Treacle Walker’ by Alan Garner

• ‘Glory’ by NoViolet Bulawayo 

• ‘Small Things Like These’ by Claire Keegan 

• ‘The Trees’ by Percival Everett 

• ‘Oh William!’ by Elizabeth Strout.

The Booker Prize

• The Booker Prize awards any work of long form fiction originally written in English and published in the UK and Ireland in the year of the prize, regardless of the nationality of their author. The work of long form fiction must be an original work in English (not a translation) and published by a registered UK or Irish imprint. Self-published works of long form fiction are not eligible. 

• The Booker Prize is worth £50,000 to the winner. It is awarded to the author of the best, eligible full-length work of long form fiction in the opinion of the judges. In addition, £2,500 is awarded to each of the six shortlisted authors.

• The Booker Prize for Fiction was first awarded in 1969.

International Booker Prize

• The International Booker Prize, formerly known as the Man Booker International Prize, has been awarded since 2005, when it was won by Albanian writer Ismail Kadare.

• It is awarded annually for a single book, translated into English and published in the UK or Ireland. 

• It is a sister prize to the Booker Prize.

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