The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida: Winner of the Booker Prize 2022

For the second year running, the Man Booker judges have shortlisted a novel set in Sri Lanka, which deals with the difficult topic of the long-running civil war and inter-community conflict. In 2021, it was the excellent "A Passage North" by Anuk Arudpragasam; and in 2022, we have "The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida", written by Shehan Karunatilaka, an author of whom I had not heard previously. The plot is complex and doubtless other reviewers will summarise it more succinctly, but suffice to say that it centres around the quest by the recently-deceased Maali to find out who was behind his death, and the circumstances leading up to it. Much of the novel is set in the afterlife, and the author presents it in a very inventive and witty style, somewhat reminiscent of another experimental and entertaining novel, "Lincoln in the Bardo" by George Saunders, which won the Booker prize in 2017. What comes across very strongly for me in “The Seven Moons” is the absolute brutality of the conflict in Sri Lanka, and the lack of value in human life, with Maali striving to bring the truth to a wider audience through the power of his photographs. The novel maintains a brisk pace, with multiple living and deceased characters interplaying over the seven nights that Maali has available to find the truth about his death. At times, it can be a little difficult to track who some of the living characters and their spirit counterparts are, and the references to Sri Lankan names and places can sometimes be a slight distraction, but this doesn’t take away from the pace of narrative or the unfolding of very surreal and inventive happenings. Overall, a great read and a highly entertaining novel which might benefit from a second reading.