Which author won the 2022 Booker Prize for 'The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida'?

Shehan Karunatilaka won the 2022 Booker Prize for “The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida.” The novel follows Maali Almeida, a dead photographer who finds himself in a surreal afterlife and has only a limited period to uncover the truth about his death.

Set in Sri Lanka during the violence and political turmoil of the 1980s, the story combines a ghost story, detective mystery, political satire and meditation on friendship. Maali’s photographs may expose atrocities and government complicity in the Sri Lankan Civil War, giving the supernatural plot a strong historical and political dimension.

The novel was published in Britain in 2022 by the independent publisher Sort of Books. An earlier version appeared in the Indian subcontinent in 2020 under the title “Chats with the Dead,” which can cause confusion when identifying the Booker-winning work. Karunatilaka became the second Sri Lankan writer to win the Booker Prize, after Michael Ondaatje, who won in 1992 for “The English Patient.”