Sri Lankan Author Shehan Karunatilaka Wins Booker Prize

Winner of the 2022 Booker Prize: The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka

Described by the Awards Committee as a “searing, mordantly funny satire” Karunatilaka’s second novel, The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida follows the titular character as he wakes up in what appears to be a celestial visa office. Meanwhile, his dismembered body sinks to the bottom of a lake—and he has no clue who killed him. Set in civil war Sri Lanka where scores are settled by death squads and suicide bombers, the list of potential murderers is alarmingly long. Yet even in the afterlife, Maali’s time runs thin—he must find out who killed him and get a message to his loved ones before seven moons pass.

The judges chose Seven Moons because of the “ambition of its scope” and “the hilarious audacity of its narrative techniques”. Chairman of the judging committee, Neil MacGregor says Karunatilaka’s book is a “metaphysical thriller, an afterlife noir” that blends and dissolves boundaries—between genre, between life and death, body and spirit. The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida is a book that takes itself entirely seriously as it adventures to the terrors that lie at the heart of Sri Lanka’s civil war. Once there, the author guides the reader to the discovery of immense grace, tenderness, and beauty that justifies every human’s life.

The Booker Short List

Though not chosen to win this year, the rest of the Booker Shortlist is more than worth reading. Our booksellers have read quite a few on this list, and would love to hear your thoughts—Bailey read and loved Keegan’s Small Things Like These, and is about to begin Seven Moons to see how it compares. Do you agree with this winner? Do you think another book would have been more worthy? Tell us in the comments below. For those of you less familiar with the list, here are the other titles shortlisted for the Booker Prize.

Glory by NoViolet Bulawayo

In a bountiful country, many years ago, the animals lived happy, bountiful, prosperous lives—until the colonizers arrived. After a long, bloody war, a new leader emerges: a charismatic horse who commands the sun and ruled for many years. Until he doesn’t.

Loosely inspired by the unexpected fall by coup of Zimbabwe’s president of almost forty years, Robert Mugabe, Bulawayo’s expressive writing follows along as a country implodes. Narrated by a chorus of different animals’ voices as they reveal the merciless and calculated work required to maintain the illusion of absolute power, as well as the earnest and astonishing optimism it takes to overthrow it. Clever and satirical with sharp teeth, Glory is courageous and funny and enormously readable.

Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan

This novella is as contemplative (and beautiful) as it is brief. Bill Furlong, while delivering coal to the local convent, comes face to face with the abusive reality of a “magdalen laundry,” an asylum amongst many operated by the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland from the 18th century through the 1990s. His own mother had only narrowly escaped that fate, and Furlong must grapple with the complicity of himself and his community—and what he can live with. A lovely, short book well worth your time and attention.

Tender and hopeful, the quiet heroism of this story celebrates empathy while rebuking the evil done in the name of religion.

Treacle Walker by Alan Garner

Returning to Cheshire, Alan Garner once again blends myth and folklore and explores with profound intelligence the fluidity of time. Joe Coppock is an ordinary person. He looks about the world with his lazy eye, reads comics, collects little baubles, birds’ eggs, and marbles. When Treacle Walker appears in his yard with a white pony and a cart, an unlikely friendship forms, showing the young boy a world he never could have imagined.

Playful, moving, and evocative, this books reads as a life’s work. Currently, we are unable to get our hands on it here at Dog-Eared Books, but hopefully, with the attention drawn by a Booker shortlisting, one of our suppliers will be able to get it soon.

The Trees by Percival Everett

In Money, Mississippi, strange murders keep happening—at each crime scene, a second dead body is there, and every one of the second bodies looks startlingly like Emmett Till. When the Mississippi Bureau of Investigations shows up, they butt heads with local law enforcement and the racist white townspeople, but the investigation soon uncovers eerily similar killings are happening all across the country. As the body count rises, the MBI seek answers from a local root doctor who has kept a record of every lynching across the US.

An uncanny thriller that refuses to let the past stay buried, The Trees skillfully condemns racism and police violence with wit, humor, and acuity.

Oh William! by Elizabeth Strout

Lucy Barton is a successful writer. She has two adult daughters and a dead husband, and is simply trying to navigate the second half of her life. Yet after many years, Lucy ends up reconnecting with her enigmatic first husband, William. Lucy doesn’t know how to feel when William invites her on a trip to uncover a dark family secret—one that has the potential to upend lives. This novel explores the quiet forces that hold us together, no matter how far we grow apart.

Tender and complex, Elizabeth Strout returns to the indominable Lucy Barton to explore the bonds of marriage and the secrets we keep. Filled with complex depths of love and profound reflection, Oh William! is an immense achievement.