Culture | Sri Lankan fiction

Shehan Karunatilaka returns with another thrilling satire

The narrator of “The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida” is a ghost

TOPSHOT - A protester shouts slogans after setting a bus on fire during a demonstration outside the Sri Lankan president's home to call for his resignation as the country's unprecedented economic crisis worsened in Colombo on March 31, 2022. - Security forces were deployed across the Sri Lankan capital on April 1 after protesters tried to storm the president's home in anger at the nation's worst economic crisis since independence. (Photo by Ishara S. KODIKARA / AFP) (Photo by ISHARA S. KODIKARA/AFP via Getty Images)

Editor’s note: On October 17th “The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida” won the Booker prize, Britain’s most prestigious literary award. The chairman of the selection committee praised it as a “metaphysical thriller…that dissolves the boundaries not just of different genres, but of life and death, body and spirit, east and west”.

This article appeared in the Culture section of the print edition under the headline “Ghosts of history”

Walkies

From the August 20th 2022 edition

Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents

Explore the edition

More from Culture

An illustration of two hands holding pencils and writing on each other's sleeves, which resemble books.

Sex, drugs or chastity?

Pope Francis has written the first memoir by a sitting pope. God help us

An illustration of a blue backpack under a bright spotlight.

Backpacks are, surprisingly, in vogue

They are following in sneakers’ path and becoming more fashionable


An illustration of tornado echoing the shapes of the Spotify logo with broken notes flying in the air.

Spotify’s playlists have altered the music industry in unexpected ways

A critical assessment of the Swedish streaming giant’s musical legacy


Henri Bergson was once the world’s most famous philosopher

He sought to reconcile science and metaphysics

Witty and wise, “A Real Pain” is a masterpiece in a minor key

Jesse Eisenberg’s deceptively slight film asks big moral questions

Now it’s all about TikTok. But Huawei led the way

The Chinese telecoms firm was the first to raise America’s hackles