2023-12-01
49 分钟Harriett Gilbert and readers around the globe talk to acclaimed Sri Lankan writer Shehan Karunatilaka about his Booker Prize-winning novel The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida. Almeida, a gay war photographer, recently deceased, with secrets aplenty, awakes to find himself sitting in line in an ethereal visa office, determined to find out who has murdered him. In a Sri Lanka beset by civil war, death squads and terrorist bombs, the list of suspects is long. He has 'seven moons' a week, to make contact with and steer his two closest friends to the evidence stash that could uncover the culprit and change the course of his country's destiny. Navigating the afterlife with a mix of sardonic wit and streetwise sensibility Maali roams war-torn Columbo confronting the ghosts and murderers who haunt Sri Lanka, in a country where the past is never really dead. (Photo: Shehan Karunatilaka. Credit: Dominic Sansoni)
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Hello, this is the BBC World Service.
I'm Harriet Gilbert.
Welcome to World Book Club, where this month we've been reading an audacious novel about Sri Lanka's long civil war.
Narrated by a man who's just been murdered.
It has ghosts, evil spirits, unscrupulous politicians, even a tragic love affair.
It's called the Seven Moons of Maali Almeida.
It won last year's Booker Prize for fiction.
And here to answer questions about it from BBC listeners around the world is its Sri Lankan author, Ceyhan Karuna Tilaka.
Sheyhan, welcome to World Book Club.
Well, thank you, Harriet.
Pleasure to be here.
Well, I gather you've just come hot foot from having a discussion with the Queen.
With Queen Camilla, I mean, that's extraordinarily glamorous.
What were you talking with her about?
Yeah, it's my second chat with her.
I chatted to her at the Booker event last year, and I think last time we chatted about her visit to Sri Lanka, I think 10 years ago with the king, and didn't have time to talk politics.
So it was a pleasant chat.
But you were there because she will be presenting this year's Booker Prize, presumably, or something like that.