Sri Lankan writer Shehan Karunatilaka is this year’s winner of the Booker Prize. He received the renowned Anglophone Literature Prize for his satirical novel The Seven Moons by Maali Almeida, about a Sri Lankan war photographer who wakes up dead in the underworld with no idea how he died. It’s his second book.

Karunatilaka came up with the idea for the novel in 2009, right after the end of decades of bloody civil war in his country. He wondered how this gigantic war trauma could be processed if the dead could talk about it, which after a long struggle gave him the idea to write a black comedy set between the victims of this battle.

Karunatilaka portrays the underworld as some kind of boring tax administration-like bureaucracy where confused souls try to pull themselves together while whispering bad ideas to the living for fun. Its protagonist, Maali Almeida, discovers that he was murdered for his war photography and that he has seven days to solve his own murder.

“Ambitious and Hilarious”

“Perhaps a plausible explanation for why tragedy after tragedy is happening in Sri Lanka is that wandering souls and spirits are wandering around,” says Karunatilaka, who previously lived in Amsterdam and now combines his writing career in Colombo with a job as a copywriter. “I thought it would be a useful way of looking at this terrifying subject, also with some lightness and playfulness.”

The judges of the award, presented by Queen Consort Camilla, praised his approach. “We admire the ambition, the skill, the daring and the hilarious execution,” said judge MacGregor. “It’s a book that takes the reader on a roller coaster ride through life and death.” According to the jury, it is a “crime and thriller full of brutal ghosts”.

In his acceptance speech, Karunatilaka said he hoped that in ten years time his book would no longer be seen as political satire but as pure fiction. “So it is understood that corruption, racism and nepotism have not worked and never will work. I hope it will be read by a Sri Lankan who will learn from his stories.”