Oct 18,2022:Sri Lankan author Shehan Karunatilaka has been named the winner of the prestigious Booker Prize for fiction for his second book The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida, about a war photographer murdered in the country’s civil war.
Karunatilaka received a trophy from Queen Consort Camilla at a ceremony on Monday night in London. It was the English language literary award’s first in-person ceremony since 2019. The 47-year-old author also gets a 50,000 pound ($56,700) prize.
Set in the Sri Lanka of 1990, Seven Moons follows gay war photographer and gambler Maali Almeida after he wakes up dead and decides to find out who was responsible.
Time is of the essence for Maali, who has “seven moons” to reach out to loved ones and guide them to hidden photos he has taken depicting the brutality of the island’s sectarian conflict.
