The Booker Prize of 2022 has been awarded to Seven Moons of Maali Almeida (previously named Chats with the Dead) by Shehan Karunathilaka.
The novel revolves around a deceased war photographer and philistine Maali Almeida, now traversing the afterlife trying to solve the cause of his murder amidst the bloodsoaked turmoil at the height of civil war of the 80s.
With satire, gallows humor and clever use of language, Shehan drills at the trauma, absurdity and some unpalatable truths as well as convenient fake-truths that are engrained in Sri Lankan thinking. Frankly, it’s more than appropriate that a piece of writing about perhaps the most depressive era of Sri Lanka is getting celebrated by the most esteemed literature award after Pullitzer prize for fiction.
“The afterlife is a nightmarish world of ghouls and demons but so is the country I left behind, beset by corrupt leaders, military death squads, suicide bombers and greedy arms dealers”
Shehan is also the author of the popular sports fiction from 2012, Chinaman: The Legend of Pradeep Mathew. The same sly manner in which he dealth with bourgeois class dynamics in Chinaman is fused in Seven Moons with race issues and the obliviousness of Colombo cafe society towards the plight of war-torn demographics in Sri Lanka. Although the whole of the story had narrative consistency, it's my opinion that he could have better explored certain characters by cutting down on auxiliary subplots. In any case, this is the closest we have come to producing a decent work of art based on pre-2000 down-in-the-dumps zeitgeist…so I’ll take that.
My man also won 50,000 euros as prize mone. Good for him.
Link for press announcement:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2...fHf_RTkn_5VVeJc06jxAjYb7tDJPnAJEP1JxXvY-ti9g4
Excerpt:
(Sorry about the screenshot from my shitty e-reader app)
The novel revolves around a deceased war photographer and philistine Maali Almeida, now traversing the afterlife trying to solve the cause of his murder amidst the bloodsoaked turmoil at the height of civil war of the 80s.
With satire, gallows humor and clever use of language, Shehan drills at the trauma, absurdity and some unpalatable truths as well as convenient fake-truths that are engrained in Sri Lankan thinking. Frankly, it’s more than appropriate that a piece of writing about perhaps the most depressive era of Sri Lanka is getting celebrated by the most esteemed literature award after Pullitzer prize for fiction.
“The afterlife is a nightmarish world of ghouls and demons but so is the country I left behind, beset by corrupt leaders, military death squads, suicide bombers and greedy arms dealers”
Shehan is also the author of the popular sports fiction from 2012, Chinaman: The Legend of Pradeep Mathew. The same sly manner in which he dealth with bourgeois class dynamics in Chinaman is fused in Seven Moons with race issues and the obliviousness of Colombo cafe society towards the plight of war-torn demographics in Sri Lanka. Although the whole of the story had narrative consistency, it's my opinion that he could have better explored certain characters by cutting down on auxiliary subplots. In any case, this is the closest we have come to producing a decent work of art based on pre-2000 down-in-the-dumps zeitgeist…so I’ll take that.
My man also won 50,000 euros as prize mone. Good for him.
Link for press announcement:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2...fHf_RTkn_5VVeJc06jxAjYb7tDJPnAJEP1JxXvY-ti9g4
Excerpt:
(Sorry about the screenshot from my shitty e-reader app)
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