- In conversation with 2022 Booker Prize shortlisted author Shehan Karunatilaka
Celebrated Sri Lankan author – whose most recent achievement was to be shortlisted for the 2022 Booker Prize for his second book ‘The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida’ – Shehan Karunatilaka doesn’t know how to describe himself. To Sri Lankans, here and abroad, however, Karunatilaka is an icon. His debut novel ‘Chinaman’ won the Commonwealth Prize, the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature, and The Gratiaen Prize, and his other interests – writing rock songs, screenplays, and travel stories – have resulted in him being published in Rolling Stone, GQ, and National Geographic.
Set in 1989 Colombo, ‘The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida’ tells the story of a war photographer – Maali Almeida – who is portrayed as a witness to the brutality of the insurrections in Sri Lanka. He is also a “gambler,” a “closet queen,” and a ghost who seems to have woken up in the afterlife at a visa office. He has no idea who killed him.
“The reason I chose 1989 was because I was a bit of a coward,” shared Karunatilaka with Frontline, India. “I wanted to write about 2009 and the end of the war, with the basic premise of ‘what if the dead could speak’. But I wasn’t brave enough to engage there. 1989 seemed like a ‘safe’ period because most of the protagonists and antagonists from that time were dead.”
Almeida’s dismembered body is “sinking somewhere” in the Beira Lake and he has seven moons to attempt to contact the man and woman he loves the most before leading them to a hidden collection of photos that would “rock” Sri Lanka.
“The books are more interesting than I am,” Karunatilaka tells me. Here are some excerpts from our interview with this talented Galle-born author.
Firstly, congratulations on your Booker Prize shortlist. How are you feeling about the news?
Thank you. [I] feel very grateful and lucky. Books are usually published to little fanfare, especially during an economic crisis. To be published in the UK and then get a longlist [and shortlist] when the world’s media were focused on Sri Lanka was a nice bit of serendipity during an otherwise crazy time.
It’s been 10 years since your last book – ‘Chinaman’. What have you been up to between both books?
Got married. Had two children. Moved countries twice. Switched from full-time to freelance. Built a house. Tried to write ‘Seven Moons’ a dozen times. Wrote short stories and kids’ books instead. Submitted to many awards I didn’t win. Survived a pandemic. Now weathering an economic crisis. We’re lucky it only took 10 years.
‘The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida’ is being called ‘educational’ (from the breakdown in acronyms, the testimonials giving different perspectives of the Sri Lankan war, time stamps, etc.) among other things. Was this intentional when you started writing the book?
Not when I started. But when several readers and editors said the politics and mythology confused them, I had to explain things like who the IPKF were and what a Yaka is. If enough people tell you you’re drunk, you need to sit down.
Why is Maali Almeida a war photographer?
He needed to be a character that linked the various warring factions, and a freelance photographer who strung for all sides allowed me to take the story to interesting places. Also, the fact that he has witnessed Sri Lanka’s atrocities close-up accounted for his seemingly amoral, nihilist attitude.
Maali is portrayed as a witness to the brutality of the insurrections in Sri Lanka. How important do you think photographs are in telling stories of our troubled past?
I’m struck by how little photographic evidence there is of Sri Lanka’s tragedies. We recycle the same three photos of 1983 every July. After uncovering Victor Ivan’s brilliant coffee table book of brutality, ‘Paradise in Tears,’ I thought of all the untaken photographs of Sri Lankan catastrophes and wondered if they all might be hidden under the bed of some dead photographer.
Photographs, stories, and histories are all crucial for future generations to understand and learn from our past, though there appears little evidence that we do or even that we want to.
Tell us about the cover illustration of the book. What is its significance?
Peter Dyer from Profile Books is a maestro. Usually, the cover takes a few rounds but this was nailed on the first go. I’ve never spoken to Peter and he probably hadn’t read the final version when he produced the cover design. But he takes a familiar symbol of a Sri Lankan devil mask and bathes it in unusual colours and shapes and perfectly captures both the sinister and playful tone of the book.
How did you come up with the title?
My title was ‘Chats with the Dead,’ which is how I saw the book – a series of interviews with ghosts. My brilliant publishers at Sort of Books – Natania Jansz and Mark Ellingham suggested the title as conveying a more plot-driven, character-focused story. I resisted at first as it seemed a bit orientalist and my last book also had the name of a character (Pradeep Mathew) in the title. Then Peter Dyer did that wonderful cover inspired by the new title, and won the argument for ‘Seven Moons’.
Why a story based in the afterlife, a ghost caught in the in-between – someone waking up disoriented in a different plain of life, so to speak?
Sri Lankans still argue over how many innocents were killed in our many wars and whose fault it was. The premise for this story is simple. Why don’t we let the dead speak and hear what they have to say?
Is satire a theme you turn to often in your writing? What are its joys and challenges?
Not sure I do. Will leave that to News Curry, Blok and Dino, Puswedilla, and all our wonderful cartoonists and meme-makers. If you’re writing truthfully about an absurd country and the many ridiculous things that happen in it, are you writing satire or realism?
Strangely, I actually consider myself more of a mystery writer. ‘Chinaman’ was a detective story or a missing person quest. ‘Seven Moons’ is a murder mystery and possibly a love story. I always set out to write airport fiction, which is very hard by the way. But by the time I’m finished, it ends up being categorised as literary or satirical, which is nice of course, but not the intention.
The book is also quite face-paced. Was this intentional as well?
These are the benefits of having a good editor stripping out the boring bits and revving up the story arc. If I am doomed to write literary novels, at least we can try and make the pages turn.
Both your books – ‘Chinaman’ and ‘The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida’ feature a debauched protagonist. It seems that you enjoy writing about people’s vices, and often deal with the complex idea that is morality. Any particular reason for this?
I find drunks and closet gays are much more interesting than classical heroic types. That said, the lead character in my new book is more of a Tom Hanks/Jimmy Stewart everyman. Hopefully, he doesn’t get corrupted by the time I’m finished.
The book explores the themes of ‘remembering’ (not forgetting) and ‘leaving a legacy’. Are these things you are concerned with as a person?
I suppose we all are. But in the books, the underlying hope is that the nation can address its past, especially the less than pleasant remembrances, and can leave it better than they found it for the next generation. Every generation since independence has failed at that, including my own. Let’s hope the millennials, Gen Zs, and the Aragalaya generation can save us all.
How much of ‘The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida’ is autobiographical or based on your own life?
Like I said, the books are more interesting than I am.
What’s an average day in your life like?
Read. Write. Work. Play. Sleep. Repeat.
What are your thoughts on what’s transpiring in Sri Lanka right now?
The cynic in me thinks that nothing will ever change and this country will take generations to heal. But the optimist tells me that there are enough Sri Lankans who think the opposite and have the drive, the smarts, the heart, and the moral fibre to create a happy, prosperous, inclusive, and loving nation.
I hope they’re all right and I’m wrong. Though, unlike Maali, I wouldn’t bet on it.
I’ve written about this at length here: www.shehanwriter.com/post/the-aragalaya-quartet
Are you a believer in the afterlife and ghosts?
[I’ve] never met a ghost, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist. I don’t believe in left-arm spinners, but I can still write books about them.
Plans for the future ?
Read more, write more, play more, sleep more, and work less.