Shehan Karunatilaka

Shehan Karunatilaka’s second novel is a searing, mordantly funny satire set amid the murderous mayhem of a Sri Lanka beset by civil war.

Maali Almeida, war photographer, gambler and closet gay, has woken up dead in what seems to be a celestial visa office. His dismembered body is sinking in the Beira Lake and he has no idea who killed him. At a time when scores are settled by death squads, suicide bombers and hired goons, the list of suspects is depressingly long.

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. 

The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida was announced as the winner of the Booker Prize 2022 on October 17 at a ceremony in London.

The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida

Maali Almeida'nın Yedi Ay Dönümü

Cemrenur Solakoğlu

 En aşağıda bir kokarcanın yüzü var. Sana tıpkı diğer tüm  hayvanlar gibi bezgin bir bakış atıyor. "Neye bakıyorsun pislik?" 

"Anlıyorum. Hayvanların ruhları var. Rüya görüyorsunuz, keyif için bir şeyler yapıyorsunuz, mutlu oluyor ve üzülüyorsunuz. Acı ve keder, aşk, aile ve arkadaşlık nedir biliyorsunuz. Insanlar bunu anlamıyor, çünkü böylelikle lezzetli bulduklarımızı kesmek daha oluyor. Sen onlardan biri değilsin, ne burada ne orada. Gerçekten üzgünüm." 

Kokarca şaşkın ya da aç ya da kızgın görünüyor, ya da bilemiyorsun, ne de olsa o bir kokarca.

 "Özrünü sikeyim, dedikten sonra Mahakalinin tenine karışarak gözden kayboluyor.

Christine Kraus

Despair always begins as a snack that you nibble on when bored and then becomes a meal that you have thrice a day.

Suzie

It is not monsters or yakas or demons we should fear. Organised collectives of evil doers who think they are performing the work of the righteous. That is what should make us shudder.

Laws are written by men...who don't mind bad things happening to people who aren't them.

Claire E

Despair always begins as a snack that you nibble on when bored and then becomes a meal you have thrice a day.

Alawander Bouston 

You are not the you that you think you are. You are everything you have thought and done and been and seen.

Answering all sorts of questions that I didn’t even know i wanted addressed

Beatrix

What does it feel like to walk through a wall? It’s like walking through a swimming pool that smells like dust and doesn’t make you wet.

WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZE 2022 A searing satire set amid the murderous mayhem of Sri Lanka beset by 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. Ten years after his prizewinning novel Chinaman established him as one of Sri Lanka's foremost authors, Karunatilaka is back with a rip-roaring epic, full of mordant wit and disturbing truths. '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 'Outstanding... the most significant work of Sri Lankan fiction in a decade.' New European

Winner of the Booker Prize 2022

Victoria Justice

The beauty of studying odds is knowing which cards are worth betting on. And knowing that freak occurrences happen every day while no one watches.

Evil is not what we should fear. Creatures with power acting in their own interest: that is what should make us shudder.

Lindsay

‘Why should a Creator watch over you? Wasn’t creating you enough?’

you come to realise that every death is significant, even when every life appears not to be.

We must all find pointless causes to live for, or why bother with breath?

And, without a doubt, that is the kindest thing you can say about life. It’s not nothing.

You wonder if all coincidences are as meticulously scripted as this one.

Humans believe they make their own thoughts and possess their own will. This is yet another placebo that we swallow after birth. Thoughts are whispers that come from without as well as within. They can no more be controlled than the wind. Whispers will blow across your mind at all times and you will succumb to more of them than you think.

‘You know why the battle of good vs evil is so one- sided, Malin? Because evil is better organised, better equipped and better paid. It is not monsters or yakas or demons we should fear. Organised collectives of evil doers who think they are performing the work of the righteous. That is what should make us shudder.’

‘Even suicide requires perseverance.’

‘Two promises are worth less than one.’

You want to ask the universe what everyone else wants to ask the universe. Why are we born, why do we die, why anything has to be. And all the universe has to say in reply is: I don’t know, arsehole, stop asking.

You hover above him, more like a mosquito than angel. The mosquitoes are said to have killed half of everyone who has ever lived. A lot more than angels have saved.

People will believe anything except the truth.’

You considered neither ‘faggot’ nor ‘homo’ nor ‘queer’ as slurs because you were none of these things. You were simply a handsome man who enjoyed beautiful boys. Nothing more, nothing less and no one’s business.

Do animals get an afterlife? Or is their punishment to be reborn as human?

Apparently Karunatilaka re-wrote parts of this to appeal more to Western audiences and I think it was a mistake since the bits where it felt the most like a US action are the bits that were actively stopping me from rating the novel higher as I read. I would like to believe that Maali Almeida would have still been as cool of a character without this but if he had not been, the novel is so rich and creative that I am sure it would have still held on its own.

But then again, the approach to the story somewhat reminded me of "Our Share of Night" by Mariana Enriquez, which was my favourite book that I read last year, so maybe I am a little biased (the perfect reader for this book).

Apparently Karunatilaka re-wrote parts of this to appeal more to Western audiences and I think it was a mistake since the bits where it felt the most like a US action are the bits that were actively stopping me from rating the novel higher as I read. I would like to believe that Maali Almeida would have still been as cool of a character without this but if he had not been, the novel is so rich and creative that I am sure it would have still held on its own.

But then again, the approach to the story somewhat reminded me of "Our Share of Night" by Mariana Enriquez, which was my favourite book that I read last year, so maybe I am a little biased (the perfect reader for this book).

Farklı bir coğrafyanın Marquez'ini okumak gibiydi. 

I wish I could’ve give this book a straight read-through in the way it deserved. But alas, life gets in the way! I love the afterlife that the author created for Maali, very unlike any afterlife representation I had seen before. The names and sides in the civil war were confusing, but I imagine that was intentional. I enjoyed! 

Emma

Chris Dailey

Genre bending ride through Sri Lanka's civil war offers humor, horror and a who-done-it. Set in Colombo immediately following the death of the photographer protagonist, Maali Almeida, his ghost moves between the living and the dead in search of who killed him and why. Full of gallows humor, the novel focuses on love, platonic friendship, the terrors of war, political corruption, and navigating the nihilism that comes from decades of destruction. Immensely readable and informative while balancing tenderness on one hand and tragedy and terror on the other.

safs

3.5 stars, rounded down.

I love nothing more than dry, acerbic humour, and this book is full of it. The author writes vividly and the second-person perspective was excellent in capturing the disconnect between Maali and his physical self. 

Maali, the main character, is well developed but the same cannot be said about the many, many (MANY!!!) side characters introduced in the book. This includes DD and Jaki, two core characters in the story. This made it really difficult to remain invested in the story, and at times, made reading the book feel a little bit like a chore. The author placed a greater focus on the mythical, which was really interesting but got a little too repetitive over time. 

Overall, an underwhelming read.

This is an incredibly moving book that deserves to be savored. 

It felt like a trip to be thrust into the world of ghosts and ghouls and the Mahakali and float along windy paths of memory and a world without you in it. It felt even trippier reading in the second person, more immersive. It's haunting to read of innocents caught in the crossfire of a long, drawn-out war, of the souls that linger with rage and refuse to move on. It's haunting because the world is still like this now, and no one in power and under its thumb has the sense to cease fire. 

This book is so beautiful in its haunting, in its gruesome, in its mysterious, in its occasional dark comedy and levity, and in its existentialism. It's beautiful in its grief, in its life, in its anxious dance between right and wrong, in its courage to let go. 

I have a sudden need to email my high school English teachers to see what they think.

joana ashley

This is an incredibly moving book that deserves to be savored. 

It felt like a trip to be thrust into the world of ghosts and ghouls and the Mahakali and float along windy paths of memory and a world without you in it. It felt even trippier reading in the second person, more immersive. It's haunting to read of innocents caught in the crossfire of a long, drawn-out war, of the souls that linger with rage and refuse to move on. It's haunting because the world is still like this now, and no one in power and under its thumb has the sense to cease fire. 

This book is so beautiful in its haunting, in its gruesome, in its mysterious, in its occasional dark comedy and levity, and in its existentialism. It's beautiful in its grief, in its life, in its anxious dance between right and wrong, in its courage to let go. 

I have a sudden need to email my high school English teachers to see what they think.

kyra

My book's cover has a review that says "Breathtakingly kaleidoscopic". I can't think of a better way to describe this book. Wonderful read. Love, love, love.

A very creative and powerful way of highlighting the history of Sri Lanka's political climate in the 1990s. Unfortunately, most of this went over my head as I found the writing beautiful but erratic!

There were elements of this book that I loved, but there were so many conflicting elements that I felt dizzy trying to come to terms with it all.

However, the satirical humour was what gripped me the most and made me want to continue reading.

The ending was definitely my favourite part, so more of the In Between and Maali's reflections on his life would have increased my overall enjoyment of the book.

A very creative and powerful way of highlighting the history of Sri Lanka's political climate in the 1990s. Unfortunately, most of this went over my head as I found the writing beautiful but erratic!

There were elements of this book that I loved, but there were so many conflicting elements that I felt dizzy trying to come to terms with it all.

However, the satirical humour was what gripped me the most and made me want to continue reading.

The ending was definitely my favourite part, so more of the In Between and Maali's reflections on his life would have increased my overall enjoyment of the book.

Solid and well-done, in a very 'subcontinental' tradition. Strong sense of a real mind at work. 

Not a big fan of the edit for Western sensibilities as a practice, but it is at least difficult to pick out here — will try to get hold of the original Indian printing though!

I regret to inform that I have decided to DNF this book 200 pages in. It takes alot for me to finally call it quits on a book, I rarely  DNF especially if I am actively annotating it. (the book stares at me on my shelf taunting me with only half tabs, its nightmarish.) 

The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida was entirely too long, not my first book in the political fiction genre but definitely was my most anticipated as this won the Booker Prize. I am so disappointed. 

Firstly, what I enjoyed; I loved the writing style, I could tell the author put alot of passion into this piece of work and for the most part I had no issues with the actual writing style or plot, I loved the premise. The ideals of life after death have always interested me. 

The amount of characters introduced convoluted the story and confused me immensely, the constant storylines and introductions to characters made it so I didn't connect to the main character and there was no depth. 

The tone from what I gathered despite being a book about a homosexual man was really homophobic, I understand trying to set a scene during a time where it was incredibly hard to be your true self but the overall tone and narration was extremely unlikeable. 

Overall this book just dragged and dragged for my own personal taste. Its taken over 3 months for me to get to this point and I have other books I prefer to read, its disappointing as it really is written beautifully and the plot had so much intrigue.

jaz ☁️

I regret to inform that I have decided to DNF this book 200 pages in. It takes alot for me to finally call it quits on a book, I rarely  DNF especially if I am actively annotating it. (the book stares at me on my shelf taunting me with only half tabs, its nightmarish.) 

The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida was entirely too long, not my first book in the political fiction genre but definitely was my most anticipated as this won the Booker Prize. I am so disappointed. 

Firstly, what I enjoyed; I loved the writing style, I could tell the author put alot of passion into this piece of work and for the most part I had no issues with the actual writing style or plot, I loved the premise. The ideals of life after death have always interested me. 

What fell short? Where do I begin.... 

The amount of characters introduced convoluted the story and confused me immensely, the constant storylines and introductions to characters made it so I didn't connect to the main character and there was no depth. 

The tone from what I gathered despite being a book about a homosexual man was really homophobic, I understand trying to set a scene during a time where it was incredibly hard to be your true self but the overall tone and narration was extremely unlikeable. 

Overall this book just dragged and dragged for my own personal taste. Its taken over 3 months for me to get to this point and I have other books I prefer to read, its disappointing as it really is written beautifully and the plot had so much intrigue.

Compelling with good prose, but the references took me out of the world 

Cierra Conner

Hard to understand the dynamics / follow conclusions character jumps to but extremely creative plot, characters who don’t fall flat, in a setting I know nothing of 

Shohini Gupta

Prashanth Srivatsa

Shehan's account of a ghost trying to track down his killer in a politically charged and war-torn Sri Lanka is both hilarious and depressing, and gives brutal insight into the forces at play in the island.

The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida

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