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

A magical realism whodunnit set amid Sri Lanka's civil war

Colombo, 1990. Maali Almeida, war photographer, gambler and closet gay, has woken up dead in what seems like a celestial visa office. His dismembered body is sinking in the serene Beira lake and he has no idea who killed him. At a time where scores are settled by death squads, suicide bombers and hired goons, the list of suspects is depressingly long, as the ghouls and ghosts with grudges who cluster round can attest.

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

Sri Lanka's foremost author delivers a rip-roaring epic, full of mordant wit and disturbing truths.

'Imagine a mash-up of Stranger Things and Salman Rushdie' Robbie Millen, Sunday Times

Review

Fizzes with energy, imagery and ideas against a broad, surreal vision of the Sri Lankan civil wars. ― The Booker judges

Recalls the mordant wit and surrealism of Nikolai Gogol's Dead Souls or Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita ... Karunatilaka has done artistic justice to a terrible period in his country's history ― Guardian

Brilliant ... rollicking ... a pleasure to read. Karunatilaka writes with tinder-dry wit and an unfaltering ear for prose cadences. -- Kate McLoughlin ― Times Literary Supplement

Outstanding ... the most significant work of Sri Lankan fiction in a decade ― New European

An exuberant whodunnit ...There can't be many novels that simultaneously bring to mind Agatha Christie, Salman Rushdie and John le Carré - but this one does ― The Times

This magic realist (and often funny) novel fizzes with energy and ideas... Imagine a mash-up of Stranger Things and Salman Rushdie -- Robbie Millen ― The Times

Shehan Karunatilaka's epic novel is a powerful evocation of Sri Lanka's dark and brutal past -- Lucy Popescu ― Financial Times

The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida is dazzling. Shehan Karunatilaka's use of Sri Lankan folk mythology is truly original ... human and non-human monsters equally terrify. And yet Karunatilaka's exuberant language and humour keeps this book buoyant and a joy to read -- Shyam Selvadurai, author of Funny Boy

A brave and brilliantly inventive novel, full of energy, about a mad bad world in a dark time -- Romesh Gunesekera, author of Reef and Monkfish Moon

Shehan Karunatilaka's narrative is breathtakingly kaleidoscopic ― Financial Times

Audacious, original and perfectly formed -- Suzanne Harrington ― Writers Mosaic

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Sort of Books; Main edition (6 April 2023)

Language ‏ : ‎ English

Paperback ‏ : ‎ 432 pages

ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1914502064

Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 12.8 x 2.8 x 19.8 cm