Explained: The Booker Prize, the 2022 winner Shehan Karunatilaka, and his work

Maali Almeida, a war photographer wakes up from the dead and has a week to lead his friends to a cache of photos clicked by him that will expose the horrors of the war in Sri Lanka.

That’s the plot of The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida, the book that won the prestigious Booker Prize this year. It is written by Shehan Karunatilaka, a Sri Lankan writer who is also known for his rock songs, screenplays and travel stories.

We are delighted to announce that the WINNER of the #BookerPrize2022 is ‘The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida ’ by Shehan Karunatilaka.

Discover more about the winning book: https://t.co/e5pLgvWmld@shehankaru @sortofbooks @ShahidhaBari @hrcastor @amabanckou @mjohnharrison pic.twitter.com/mtaVewL7Ij

— The Booker Prizes (@TheBookerPrizes) October 17, 2022

The ceremony took place at the Roundhouse in London and the prize was presented by the Queen Consort of the United Kingdom, Camilla. It was also attended by singer-songwriter Dua Lipa, who was the star guest at the event.

According to a report by NPR, the panel of judges described the novel as “a searing, mordantly funny satire set amid the murderous mayhem of a Sri Lanka beset by civil war.”

Let’s take a closer look.

About the Booker Prize

The prize was founded in 1969. Initially rewarding authors who belonged to the Commonwealth only, the scope of the prize now spans the entire world.

Every year, the award is presented to the best work of fiction written in English and published in the UK and Ireland. The prize is one of the two literary awards – the Booker Prize and the International Booker Prize – and is given out annually by the Booker Prize Foundation.

According to a report by Indian Express, the name ‘Booker’ came after the Booker Group Limited, which is a British food wholesale operator that initially sponsored the event, from 1969 to 2001. In 2002, the Man Group, an investment management firm based in the UK began sponsoring the prize and the name was thus changed to ‘The Man Booker Prize.’ Finally, in 2019, the sponsorship was taken over by an American charitable foundation called Crankstart and the name was changed back to the Booker Prize.

Once the winner and the shortlisted authors are presented with the award, they are guaranteed to get a global readership and recognition as well as an increase in book sales. Apart from this the winner also receives a cash prize of £50,000 (Rs 46.65 lakh) while each of the shortlisted author gets £2,500 (Rs 2.33 lakh).

The selection process of the winning author begins when an advisory committee which includes a writer, two publishers, a literary agent, a bookseller, a librarian and a chairperson gets appointed by the foundation. This committee then selects a judging panel which changes every year. According to a report by The Business Standard, the judges are selected from leading critics, writers and academics, who pick the best work of literature.

The judges’ panel this year included cultural historian Neil MacGregor, academic Shahidha Bari, historian Helen Castor, critic M John Harrison and writer Alain Mabanckou, who read around 169 submissions.

About The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida

The book is set against the backdrop of Sri Lanka’s civil war. It is a satirical “afterlife noir” and is Shehan Karunatilaka’s second novel.

According to the official website of the Booker Prize, the book is a “metaphysical thriller, an afterlife noir that dissolves the boundaries not just of different genres, but of life and death, body and spirit, east and west. It is an entirely serious philosophical romp that takes the reader to the ‘world’s dark heart’ – the murderous horrors of civil war in Sri Lanka. And once there, the reader also discovers the tenderness and beauty, the love and loyalty and the pursuit of an ideal that justify every human life.”

Everything you need to know about the winning book: what it’s about, why it won, how the author wrote it and what the judges and critics said