The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida

The novel is set in Sri Lanka in the 1980s, and written in the second person. The central character, Maali Almeida, is a dead photographer who sets out to solve the mystery of his own death and is given one week ("seven moons") during which he can travel between the afterlife and the real world.{{cite news|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/what-to-read/seven-moons-maali-almeida-shehan-karunatilaka-review-bawdy-wisecracking/|title=Booker 2022: The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka review: a bawdy, wisecracking winner|newspaper=The Telegraph|first=Nikhil|last=Krishnan|date=18 October 2022}} In this time, he hopes to retrieve a set of photographs, stored under a bed, and to persuade his friends to share them widely to expose the brutalities of the Sri Lankan Civil War.

Karunatilaka wrote his second novel in various versions with different titles. When the first draft was shortlisted for the Gratiaen Prize in 2015, it was titled Devil Dance.{{cite magazine|last=Jayasinghe|first=Pasan|date=18 October 2022|title=Shehan Karunatilaka: 'The state will come after the defenceless'|url=https://frontline.thehindu.com/books/interview-shehan-karunatilaka-booker-prize-2022-shortlist-the-state-will-come-after-the-defenceless/article65861579.ece|magazine=Frontline|publisher=The Hindu Group|access-date=18 October 2022}} It was originally published in the Indian subcontinent as Chats with the Dead in 2020 by Penguin India's Hamish Hamilton imprint.{{Cite web |last=Jayasinghe |first=Pasan |date=7 September 2022 |title=Shehan Karunatilaka: 'The state will come after the defenceless' |url=https://frontline.thehindu.com/books/interview-shehan-karunatilaka-booker-prize-2022-shortlist-the-state-will-come-after-the-defenceless/article65861579.ece |access-date=18 October 2022 |website=frontline.thehindu.com |language=en}} Karunatilaka struggled to find an international publisher for the novel because most deemed Sri Lankan politics "esoteric and confusing" and many felt "the mythology and worldbuilding was impenetrable, and difficult for Western readers." The independent British publishing house Sort of Books agreed to publish the novel after editing to "make it familiar to Western readers." Karunatilaka revised the work for two years due to its publication being delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic. He has commented: "I'd say it's the same book, but it benefits from two years of tightening and is much more accessible. It is a bit confusing to have the same book with two different titles, but I think the eventual play is that The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida will become the definitive title and text."

The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida won the 2022 Booker Prize, announced at a ceremony at The Roundhouse in London on 17 October 2022,{{Cite web |title=The Booker Prize 2022 {{!}} The Booker Prizes |url=https://thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-library/prize-years/2022 |access-date=5 October 2022 |website=thebookerprizes.com |language=en}}{{cite news|last=Shaffi|first=Sarah|date=26 July 2022|title=Booker prize longlist of 13 writers aged 20 to 87 announced|work=The Guardian|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/jul/26/booker-prize-longlist-of-13-writers-aged-20-to-87-announced|access-date=26 July 2022}}{{cite news|date=26 July 2022|title=Shehan Karunatilaka's The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida longlisted for 2022 Booker Prize|work=The Sunday Times|url=https://www.timesonline.lk/news-online/Shehan-Karunatilakas-The-Seven-Moons-of-Maali-Almeida-longlisted-for-2022-Booker-Prize/2-1138181|access-date=26 July 2022}}{{cite web|url=https://www.sundaytimes.lk/220731/plus/its-always-a-thrill-to-have-a-book-of-yours-make-a-list-shehan-490263.html|title=It's always a thril to have a book of yours make a list: Shehan|first=Adilah|last=Ismail|newspaper=The Sunday Times|date=31 July 2022}} the award being presented to the author by Queen Camilla.{{cite web|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdkCWQmm4sM|title=Shehan Karunatilaka's Novel "The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida" Wins Booker Prize 2022|website=YouTube|date=18 October 2022|access-date=6 November 2022}} The judges – the panel comprising Neil MacGregor (chair), Shahidha Bari, Helen Castor, M. John Harrison and Alain Mabanckou – said that the novel "fizzes with energy, imagery and ideas against a broad, surreal vision of the Sri Lankan civil wars. Slyly, angrily comic."{{cite magazine|url=https://www.thebookseller.com/news/booker-prize-longlist-dominated-by-indies-as-judges-pick-youngest-and-oldest-ever-nominees|title=Booker Prize longlist dominated by indies as judges pick youngest and oldest ever nominees|first=Sian|last=Bayley|magazine=The Bookseller|date=26 July 2022|access-date=30 July 2022}}

According to Book Marks, the novel received a "positive" consensus, based on ten critics: four "rave", five "positive", and one "mixed".{{Cite web |title=The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida|url=https://bookmarks.reviews/reviews/the-seven-moons-of-maali-almeida/|access-date=17 February 2024 |website=Book Marks}} In the January/February 2023 issue of Bookmarks, the book was rated four out of five. The magazine's critical summary reads: "If the book feels a bit overstuffed at times, it’s also “[o]riginal, sensational, imaginative, political, mysterious, romantic: it is obvious why this novel won the [Booker Prize]".{{Cite web |title=The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida|url=https://lsc-pagepro.mydigitalpublication.com/publication/?i=788493|access-date=14 January 2023 |website=Bookmarks |date=January-February 2023|page=33}}{{Cite web |title=The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida|url=https://www.thefreelibrary.com/literary+FICTION.-a0759974457|access-date=14 January 2023 |website=Bookmarks}}

The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida was characterised by Charlie Connelly in The New European as "part ghost story, part whodunnit, part political satire ... a wonderful book about Sri Lanka, friendship, grief and the afterlife".{{cite news|url=https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/sri-lanka-in-purgatory/|title=Sri Lanka in purgatory|first=Charlie|last=Connelly|newspaper=The New European|date=28 July 2022}} The verdict of The Sydney Morning Herald was: "Original, sensational, imaginative, political, mysterious, romantic: it is obvious why this novel won the prize. ...It has the bleak power of Solzhenitsyn's The Gulag Archipelago. And unlike that great book it is relentlessly, shockingly funny."{{cite news|url=https://www.smh.com.au/culture/books/it-s-obvious-why-this-sensational-novel-won-the-booker-prize-20221024-p5bsf0.html|title=It's obvious why this sensational novel won the Booker Prize|first=Helen|last=Elliott|newspaper=The Sydney Morning Herald|date=26 October 2022}}

The review by Randy Boyagoda in The New York Times said that the novel "offers a very palatable combination of literary-political-ethical challenges, enjoyments and validations to its readers, including a sense of timeliness."{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/28/books/review/shehan-karunatilaka-seven-moons-maali-almeida.html|title=The Hero of This Novel Is Dead. He'd Like to Find Out Why|newspaper=The New York Times|first=Randy|last=Boyagoda|date=28 October 2022}} Literary Review observed: "Witty, inventive and moving, Karunatilaka’s prose is gloriously free of cliché, and despite the apparent cynicism of his smart-alec narrator, this is a deeply moral book that eschews the simple moralising of so much contemporary fiction."{{cite web|url=https://literaryreview.co.uk/dead-man-talking|title=Dead Man Talking|first=Frank|last=Lawton|magazine=The Literary Review|date=October 2022|access-date=6 November 2022}}

Describing the novel as "brilliant", the TLS review continued: "It is messy and chaotic in all the best ways. It is also a pleasure to read: Karunatilaka writes with tinder-dry wit and an unfaltering ear for prose cadences."{{cite magazine|url=https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/the-seven-moons-of-maali-almeida-shehan-karunatilaka-book-review-kate-mcloughlin/|title=There are no good guys: Death and blame in the lethal game of 'Lankan roulette'|first=Kate|last=McLoughlin|magazine=TLS|date=16 September 2022|access-date=6 November 2022}} The Financial Times reviewer concluded: "The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida is an ambitious novel, epic in scope (mixing tropes from thrillers, crime fiction and magic realism) and a powerful evocation of Sri Lanka's brutal past."{{cite news|url=https://www.ft.com/content/3f7582cd-2cf9-4f5b-85f4-185bb22498c3|title=The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida — the living dead|first=Lucy|last=Popescu|newspaper=Financial Times|date=7 October 2022}}

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Category:2022 novels

Category:Booker Prize–winning works

Category:Novels about the afterlife

Category:Novels set in Sri Lanka

Category:Novels set in the 1980s

Category:Second-person narrative novels

Category:Sri Lankan civil war books

Category:Sri Lankan English-language novels