Posted on October 17, 2022 at 4:48 PM by Sadye Scott-Hainchek
Shehan Karunatilaka has become the second author born in Sri Lanka to win the Booker Prize.
He received the honor — and £50,000 (over $56,000) prize — at a ceremony this evening for The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida.
The novel, his second, features a photographer who wakes up dead but has a week to ask his friends to find his photos and expose the brutality of war.
Set during Sri Lanka's decades-long civil war, it aims to provide lessons for the country's future leaders.
"My hope is that in the not too distant future... Sri Lanka has understood that these ideas of corruption... and cronyism have not worked and will never work," Karunatilaka said while accepting the Booker Prize, according to the BBC.
Camilla, the Queen Consort, presented the prize, and pop star Dua Lipa performed at the ceremony, serenading shortlisted author Alan Garner who turned eighty-eight today.
The other shortlisted works and their authors, who each receive £2,500 (over $2,800), are:
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Glory by NoViolet Bulawayo
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The Trees by Percival Everett
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Treacle Walker by Alan Garner
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Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan
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Oh William! by Elizabeth Strout
The Booker Prize is among the most prestigious English-language literary awards; it honors the best work of fiction published in English in the United Kingdom each year.
Michael Ondaatje, who won the Booker in 1992 for The English Patient, was previously the only winner born in Sri Lanka.
Categories: Today in Books