Shehan Karunatilaka | |
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![]() Karunatilaka in 2020 | |
Born | 1975 (age 48–49) Galle, Sri Lanka |
Occupation | Writer, Creative Director |
Nationality | Sri Lankan |
Education | S. Thomas' Preparatory School; Whanganui Collegiate School; Massey University |
Period | 2000 – present |
Genre | Novels, children's books, short stories |
Subject | Sri Lankan society |
Notable works | Chinaman: The Legend of Pradeep Mathew (2010) The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida (2022) |
Notable awards | Gratiaen Prize (2008); Commonwealth Book Prize (2012); DSC Prize for South Asian Literature (2012); Booker Prize (2022) |
Website | |
www |
Shehan Karunatilaka (born 1975) is a Sri Lankan writer. He grew up in Colombo, studied in New Zealand and has lived and worked in London, Amsterdam and Singapore. His 2010 debut novel Chinaman: The Legend of Pradeep Mathew won the Commonwealth Book Prize, the DSC Prize, the Gratiaen Prize and was adjudged the second greatest cricket book of all time by Wisden . His third novel The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida (Sort of Books, 2022) was announced as the winner of the 2022 Booker Prize on 17 October 2022. [1] [2] [3]
Shehan Karunatilaka was born in 1975 in Galle, southern Sri Lanka, [4] and grew up in Colombo. [5] He was educated at S. Thomas' Preparatory School, Kollupitiya, Sri Lanka, and then in New Zealand at Whanganui Collegiate School, and Massey University. [4] [6] He graduated in English literature, against his family's wish that he study business administration. [7] [8]
Before publishing his debut novel in 2010, he worked in advertising at McCann, Iris and BBDO, and has also written features for The Guardian , Newsweek , Rolling Stone , GQ, National Geographic , Conde Nast, Wisden , The Cricketer and the Economic Times. He has played bass with Sri Lankan rock bands Independent Square and Powercut Circus [9] and the Brass Monkey Band.
Karunatilaka's first manuscript, The Painter, was shortlisted for the Gratiaen Prize in 2000, [10] but was never published.
His debut novel, Chinaman: The Legend of Pradeep Mathew (self-published in 2010), [11] uses cricket as a device to write about Sri Lankan history. [12] It tells the story of an alcoholic journalist's quest to track down a missing Sri Lankan cricketer of the 1980s.
Described as "part-tragedy, part-comedy, part-mystery and part-drunken-memoir", Chinaman is set in Sri Lanka in 1999, fresh after a world cup victory and in the throes of a civil war that will continue for another decade. Most of the action takes place "on Colombo's streets, at cricket matches, in strange houses and in dodgy bars."
The story's narrator is retired sports journalist WG Karunasena, who has done little with his 64 years, other than drink arrack and watch Sri Lankan cricket. When informed by doctors of his liver problems, WG decides to track down the greatest thing he has ever seen, Pradeep Mathew, left-arm spinner for Sri Lanka during the late 1980s.
The book was critically hailed, winning many awards. On 21 May 2012, Chinaman was announced as the regional winner for Asia of the Commonwealth Book Prize [13] and went on to win the overall Commonwealth Book Prize announced on 8 June, when chair of judges Margaret Busby said: "This fabulously enjoyable read will keep you entertained and rooting for the protagonist until the very end, while delivering startling truths about cricket and about Sri Lanka." [14] Chinaman also won the 2012 DSC Prize for South Asian Literature, and the 2008 Gratiaen Prize. [9] Published to great acclaim in India and the UK, the book was one of the Waterstones 11 selected by British bookseller Waterstones as one of the top debuts of 2011 [15] and was also shortlisted for the Shakti Bhatt First Book Prize. [16]
In 2015, a Sinhala-language translation by Dileepa Abeysekara was published as Chinaman: Pradeep Mathewge Cricket Pravadaya. [17]
In April 2019, the novel was voted among the best cricket books ever by Wisden . [18]
Karunatilaka wrote his second novel in various versions with different titles. When the first draft was shortlisted for the Gratiaen Prize in 2015, it was titled Devil Dance. [19] It was originally published in the Indian subcontinent as Chats with the Dead in 2020 by Penguin India. [20] [21] Karunatilaka struggled to find an international publisher for the novel because most deemed Sri Lankan politics "esoteric and confusing" and many felt "the mythology and worldbuilding was impenetrable, and difficult for Western readers." The independent British publishing house Sort of Books agreed to publish the novel after editing to "make it familiar to Western readers." Karunatilaka revised the work for two years due to its publication being delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Karunatilaka said, "I'd say it's the same book, but it benefits from two years of tightening and is much more accessible. It is a bit confusing to have the same book with two different titles, but I think the eventual play is that The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida will become the definitive title and text." [19]
Published in August 2022 by Sort of Books, The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida won the 2022 Booker Prize, announced at a ceremony at The Roundhouse in London on 17 October 2022. [22] [23] [24] [25] [26] The judges said that the novel "fizzes with energy, imagery and ideas against a broad, surreal vision of the Sri Lankan civil wars. Slyly, angrily comic." [27] Charlie Connelly's review in The New European characterised the novel as "part ghost story, part whodunnit, part political satire ... a wonderful book about Sri Lanka, friendship, grief and the afterlife". [28]
Set against the backdrop of the civil war, the story chronicles the challenges and ethical dilemmas of a war photographer tasked to solve his own murder mystery. It is a story of a ghost trapped navigating the afterlife and coming to terms with his life, his work, his relationships and his death.
Structured as a whodunit, the story follows renegade war photographer Maali Almeida, who is tasked with solving his own murder. Embroiled in red tape, memories of war, his own ethical dilemmas, and his awkward relationship with his mother, his official girlfriend and his secret boyfriend Maali is constantly interrupted by the overly chatty dead folks breezing through the afterlife, as he struggles to unravel his own death.
The author set the book in 1989, as this was when "The Tigers, The Army, The Indian peacekeepers, The JVP terrorists and State death squads were all killing each other at a prolific rate." A time of curfews, bombs, assassinations, abductions and mass graves seemed to the author to be "a perfect setting for a ghost story, a detective tale or a spy thriller. Or all three."
Initially conceived as a story for his son, Please Don't Put That In Your Mouth (2019) marked the first formal collaboration between Shehan and his artist/illustrator brother, Lalith Karunatilaka, though Lalith had sketched the ball diagrams from Chinaman and the cover of Chats With The Dead.
Speaking to LiveMint, the author commented: "I have experienced many traumatic moments involving toddlers eating dangerous things. My daughter once mistook a wet paint brush for an ice cream and started licking it. My son is known to pick up dead insects and munch on them. I intended to write a cautionary tale, but silliness overtook it." [29]
In 2013, speaking to The Nation , Karunatilaka described his influences as: "Kurt Vonnegut, William Goldman, Salman Rushdie, Michael Ondaatje, Agatha Christie, Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, Tom Robbins and a few hundred others." [30] He has additionally acknowledged Douglas Adams, George Saunders and Cormac McCarthy. [31]
Karunatilaka has also written and spoken about his lifelong obsession with rock band The Police. [32]
Karunatilaka is currently working on two more children's books, a short-story collection and hopes to begin a novel that "hopefully won't take 10 years." [33]
It had been speculated that his third novel, Khans, was set to be released by mid-2023 — which date has gone by. [34]
The Booker Prize, formerly the Booker Prize for Fiction (1969–2001) and the Man Booker Prize (2002–2019), is a prestigious literary award conferred each year for the best single work of sustained fiction written in the English language, which was published in the United Kingdom and/or Ireland. The winner of the Booker Prize receives £50,000, as well as international publicity that usually leads to a significant sales boost. When the prize was created, only novels written by Commonwealth, Irish, and South African citizens were eligible to receive the prize; in 2014, eligibility was widened to any English-language novel—a change that proved controversial.
The sport of cricket has long held a special place in Anglophone culture, and a specialised niche in English literature. Cricket is the official summer sport in England, and it is widely known as the "gentleman's game", owing to the unique culture of the sport and its emphasis on ideals such as grace, sportsmanship, character and complexity. Cricket has therefore often attracted the attention of the literati – Lamb, Hazlitt and Leigh Hunt were all players of the game – and some of the greatest English writers have written about cricket. This was particularly true in the era before the Second World War, for example, during the Edwardian era, and in the 1920s and 1930s.
Romesh Gunesekera FRSL is a Sri Lankan-born British author, who was shortlisted for the Booker Prize for his novel Reef in 1994. He has judged a number of literary prizes and was Chair of the judges of Commonwealth Short Story Prize competition for 2015.
Chinaman is an archaic term for a Chinese person.
Richard Manik de Zoysa was a well-known Sri Lankan journalist, author, human rights activist and actor, who was abducted and murdered on 18 February 1990. His murder caused widespread outrage inside the country and is widely believed to have been carried out by a death squad linked to elements within the government.
Angelo Davis Mathews is a professional Sri Lankan cricketer and a former captain of the national cricket team in all formats. Mathews currently plays all formats for Sri Lanka., Mathews was a key member of the team that won the 2014 ICC World Twenty20 and was part of the team that made the finals of 2011 Cricket World Cup, 2009 ICC World Twenty20 and 2012 ICC World Twenty20. Mathews and Lasith Malinga hold the record for the highest ninth wicket partnership in ODI cricket.
Premawathi Manamperi was a woman from Kataragama, Sri Lanka. She was arrested on suspicion of leading a rebel group that disturbed the country in 1971. That year, she was handed over to the army where she was tortured, possibly raped and paraded naked through the streets, and killed. Her death is a prominent event in Sri Lankan crime history.
The Gratiaen Prize is an annual literary prize for the best work of literary writing in English by a resident of Sri Lanka. It was founded in 1992 by the Sri Lankan-born Canadian novelist Michael Ondaatje with the money he received as joint-winner of the Booker Prize for his novel The English Patient. The prize is named after Ondaatje's mother, Doris Gratiaen.
The DSC Prize for South Asian Literature is an international literary prize awarded annually to writers of any ethnicity or nationality writing about South Asia themes such as culture, politics, history, or people. It is for an original full-length novel written in English, or translated into English. The award is for novels published in the year preceding the judging of the prize. The winner receives 25,000 USD. The DSC Prize was instituted by Surina Narula and Manhad Narula in 2010. Its stated purpose is to showcase the best writing about the South Asian region and bring it to a global audience.
The Waterstones 11 was a literary book prize aimed at promoting debut authors, run and curated by British bookseller Waterstones. It ran from 2011–13. The list of 11 authors are selected from a list of 100 authors submitted by publishers. The prize, established in 2011, has included Orange Prize winner Téa Obreht's novel The Tiger's Wife, Man Booker Prize nominee Pigeon English by Stephen Kelman and the winner of the Desmond Elliott Prize for New Fiction, The Land of Decoration by Grace McCleen.
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Punyakante Wijenaike was a Sri Lankan writer. She has been described as "one of the most underestimated fiction writers currently at work in the English language."
Chinaman: The Legend of Pradeep Mathew is a 2010 novel by Shehan Karunatilaka. Using cricket as a device to write about Sri Lankan society, the book tells the story of an alcoholic journalist's quest to track down a missing cricketer of the 1980s. The novel was critically hailed on publication, winning awards and much positive review coverage.
The Booker Prize is a literary award given for the best English novel of the year. The 2022 award was announced on 17 October 2022, during a ceremony hosted by Sophie Duker at the Roundhouse in London. The longlist was announced on 26 July 2022. The shortlist was announced on 6 September. Leila Mottley, at 20, was the youngest longlisted writer to date, and Alan Garner, at 87, the oldest. The majority of the 13 titles were from independent publishers. The prize was awarded to Shehan Karunatilaka for his novel, The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida, receiving £50,000. He is the second Sri Lankan to win the prize, after Michael Ondaatje.
Sort of Books is an independent British publishing house started in 1999 by Mark Ellingham and Natania Jansz, founders of the Rough Guides travel series. The company publishes both original and classic fiction and non-fiction titles: "The sort of books [readers] will want to discover and re-discover."
The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida is a 2022 novel by Sri Lankan author Shehan Karunatilaka and winner of the 2022 Booker Prize. The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida was published on 4 August 2022 by the small independent London publisher Sort of Books (ISBN 978-1908745903). An earlier version of the novel was originally published in the Indian subcontinent as Chats with the Dead in 2020.
Manasi Subramaniam is an editor, currently serving as Editor-in-Chief and Vice-President, Penguin Press, Penguin Random House India. She was a 2022 Maurice R. Greenberg Yale World Fellow at the Jackson School of Global Affairs at Yale University.