Shehan Karunatilaka’s ‘The Seven Moons of Maali Almedia’ wins 2022 Booker Prize

LONDON: Sri Lankan author, Shehan Karunatilaka, won this year’s Booker Prize for his novel ‘The Seven Moons of Maali Almedia’. He received the prize from Queen Consort, Camila, during a function last night in London. The prestigious award comes with 50,000 pounds in prize money.

The Seven Moons of Maali Almedia is a novel set in the background of the Sri Lankan civil war which raged in 1990. The main character in the story is the ghost of a dead war photographer, Maali Almedia. In seven nights, the ghost of Maali Almedia struggles to bring his loved ones to the photos of the cruelty that is unleashed in the war.

Shehan Karunatilaka’s first novel, Chinaman: The Legend of Pradeep Mathew, was published in 2011. It is his second novel, which he wrote ten years later, that has now won the Booker Prize.

Six authors made it into the final list of the Booker Prize before Shehan Karunatilaka was chosen for the award.