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by Shehan Karunatilaka
Winner of the 2022 Booker Prize, The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida is a searing satire set amid the mayhem of the Sri Lankan civil war.
Colombo, 1990. Maali Almeida―war photographer, gambler, and closet queen―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. In a country 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 contact the man and woman he loves most and lead them to the photos that will rock Sri Lanka.
Ten years after his prize-winning novel Chinaman established him as one of Sri Lanka's foremost authors, Shehan Karunatilaka is back with a "thrilling satire" (Economist) and rip-roaring state-of-the-nation epic that offers equal parts mordant wit and disturbing, profound truths.
Booker Prize, 2022
BookBrowse
"I started the book with the expectation of liking it (since it's won the International Booker) but I struggled to find much to enjoy. The language is vulgar and mordant in a self-satisfied, knowing way. Only three aspects of Maali's personality are repeatedly drilled into the reader in many colourful ways, and yet the character comes across as hollow. And I struggled to appreciate the apparently irreverent voice and storyline. The author does a good deal of telling rather than showing, the story's pace frustratingly slows down on and off, and the flabby book could probably be half its size." - Tasneem Pocketwala
Others
"Comic, macabre, angry and thumpingly alive... [Maali's voice] has bite, brilliance, and sparkle... Still, the furious comedy in Mr. Karunatilaka's novel never courts despair." ― Economist
"There can't be many novels that simultaneously bring to mind Agatha Christie, Salman Rushdie, Raymond Chandler, John le Carré and Stranger Things―but this one does... Karunatilaka respects the conventions of all the genres that he piles up so extravagantly... The result is an unexpectedly exhilarating read. ― James Walton, The Times [UK]
"A mix of mischievous magic realism and absurdist humour... [A] wild, uncategorisable [novel]." ― Claire Allfree, The Telegraph
"The obvious literary comparisons are with the magical realism of Salman Rushdie and Gabriel García Márquez. But the novel also 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." ― Tomiwa Owolade, The Guardian
"This book is difficult to categorise. With ghosts and spirits in the afterlife, it is part supernatural. But it also gives you a thorough grounding in Sri Lankan politics. And as the narrative gathers pace it becomes a whodunnit. The result is a thrilling read." ― Rebecca Jones, BBC
"The most significant work of Sri Lankan fiction in a decade... Amid the dryness, satire and weary lamentations on the state of Sri Lanka there is genuine heart to this novel." ― Charlie Connelly, New European Review
This information about The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Shehan Karunatilaka is the award-winning author of Chinaman: The Legend of Pradeep Mathew and The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida, winner of the 2022 Booker Prize. Born in Colombo, Sri Lanka, he studied in New Zealand and has lived and worked in London, Amsterdam, and Singapore.
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