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

WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZE 2022

Now with added author content - a Map of Colombo as viewed from the afterlife + Dramatis Personae

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.

'Recalls the mordant wit and surrealism of Gogol and Bulgakov.' - Guardian
'Outstanding... the most significant work of Sri Lankan fiction in a decade.' - New European

Details

ISBN13: 9781914502071
Format: Paperback / softback
Number of Pages: 432
Edition: Main
Publication Date: 03 Oct 2023
Publisher: Sort of Books
Publication City, Country: London, United Kingdom
Dimensions (cm): 19.8(H)x12.8(L)x2.8(W)340
Weight (gm): 340

Author Biography

Shehan Karunatilaka is the winner of the 2022 Booker Prize for his second novel The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida. His debut novel, Chinaman (2011) won the Commonwealth Book Prize and Gratiaen Prize. Born in Sri Lanka, he studied in New Zealand and has lived in London, Amsterdam and Singapore. He currently lives in Colombo with his family, his guitars and his notes for new stories.

Reviews

'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

'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 Carre - but this one does' - The Times