His novel “The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida” is a satire full of black humor which has the framework of civil war shaken the Sri Lanka in the 1990s.
Le Monde
The Sri-Lankan writer Shehan Karunatilaka won the prestigious British Booker on Monday evening for his novel “The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida”, a biting satire which has the framework of the civil war which rocked its country.
The jury praised “the magnitude and the competence, the audacity, the boldness and the hilarity” of the author, who thus sees his second novel crowned.
This case of murder with black humor takes place in the Sri Lankan capital, Colombo, in the 1990s after the civil war. He follows a Hidden War and Homosexual War Photographer, who tries to find out who killed him.
The assurance of international renown
The literary prize was awarded to London in the presence of Queen Consort Camilla, during the first ceremony in person since 2019 because of the COVVI-19 pandemic.
Shehan Karunatilaka, 47, is the second writer born in Sri Lanka to receive the Booker Prize, after Michael Ondaatje in 1992. Last year, the prize was awarded to the South African author Damon Galgut for The Promise (the promise), a book on time passing through a family of white farmers in South Africa post-Apartheid.
The winner wins the award of 50,000 pounds (around 60,000 euros) and the insurance of international renown. Salman Rushdie, Margaret Atwood or Hilary Mantel, who died last month at 70, are among the writers who received the prize that rewards novels written in English.