Sri Lankan writer Shehan Karunatilaka wins Booker Prize for his satirical 'ghost story'

Calling his book a fictional work and not political satire, the author said, “My hope for ‘Seven Moons’ is that in the not too distant future… it is read in a Sri Lanka that has understood that these ideas of corruption, race-baiting and cronyism have not worked and will never work.”

Full of dark humour, satire and absurdities, Seven Moons grounds itself in the traumatic events in Sri Lanka’s past. MacGregor said the book “takes the reader on a rollercoaster journey through life and death right” and readers can find “joy, tenderness, love and loyalty”. The book won praise in depicting a dark part of Sri Lankan history in an innovative way while doing justice to the story.

“I thought a ghost story would be an interesting way of making sense of this trauma and the many traumas that unfolded,” he told The Hindu in an interview.

Born in 1975 in Galle, southern Sri Lanka, Karunatilaka is considered one of the most pre-eminent contemporary Sri Lankan authors. He made his debut with the novel Chinaman: The Legend of Pradeep Mathew (2010), which focused on an alcoholic writer's journey using cricket to talk about Sri Lankan society. The self-published work won the Commonwealth Book Prize, the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature and the Gratiaen Prize.

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Karunatilaka had struggled with publishing the book and only managed to self-publish it using the proceeds from the Graetian Prize. Seven Moons was published by the independent British publishing house Sort of Books.

Calling Margaret Atwood, George Saunders, Cormac McCarthy and David Mitchell his literary heroes, Karunatilaka takes inspiration from the works of Kurt Vonnegut and William Goldman, he told The Hindu. Other writers from the sub-continent who he reads include Salman Rushdie, Michael Ondaatje, Ruvindu Gunasekera and others.

Karunatilaka grew up in Colombo and currently lives in the island nation. He studied in New Zealand and has lived in London, Amsterdam and Singapore for work where he gathered two decades of experience working for ad agencies, tech firms, media houses, start-ups and multinationals. He has written features for The Guardian, Rolling Stone, Wisden, GQ, Conde Nast and National Geographic.

Karunatilaka’s next work, The Birth Lottery and other Surprises, is expected to be published later this year. His first screenplay, 800: The Murali Story, will also begin filming in 2022.