President Ranil Wickremesinghe has congratulated Shehan Karunatilaka on becoming the second Sri Lankan-born author to receive the prestigious Booker Prize for his second novel, “The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida.”

The Booker Prize 2022, one of the most prestigious literary awards in the world, has gone to The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka, a Sri Lankan writer also known for his rock songs, screenplays and travel stories. 

The novel, Karunatilaka’s second, is a satire based in war-torn Sri Lanka, surrounding the life of a war photographer who goes on a journalistic mission in his afterlife. Karunatilaka will receive £50,000 as prize money.

The ceremony was held at the Roundhouse, a popular concert venue in London, and attended by Camilla, the Queen Consort of the United Kingdom, and singer-songwriter Dua Lipa.

Upon winning the award, Karunatilaka said, “My hope for [Seven Moons] is this: that in the not-too-distant future, it is read in a Sri Lanka that has understood that the ideas of corruption and race-baiting and cronyism have not worked and will never work. I hope it’s read in a Sri Lanka that learns from its stories and that this book will be in the fantasy section of a bookshop and will not be mistaken for realism or political satire.”

The Booker Prize is awarded annually to a book published in English in the United Kingdom or Ireland. The International Booker Prize — its 2022 edition won by Geetanjali Shree for her Hindi novel, Tomb of Sand, the first Indian-language work to win the prize — is awarded to a work of translation published in the same territories. 

It is known to revolutionalise the careers of winners, with Salman Rushdie, Arundhati Roy, Margaret Atwood and the late Hilary Mantel among many who became household names after their awards.

-With Agencies Inputs