Civil War and the Afterlife: A Conversation with the 2022 Booker Prize Winner, Shehan Karunatilaka
“When it comes to the afterlife, everyone makes up stories.”
The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida is set in 1989 – a significant year in Sri Lanka’s recent history. For those who aren’t very familiar with Sri Lanka’s civil war, could you give our readers a sense of what was happening at that time and why you chose that specific year as the backdrop for Maali’s story?
There was a civil war between Tamil separatists and the armed forces representing the Sinhalese state. There were Indian peacekeepers up north fighting the terrorists. There were Marxist groups terrorizing civilians down south and death squads hounding young radicals. Three wars, waves of assassinations, disappearances and corpses. 1989 had more than enough material to base a ghost story on and was far enough in the past to not get me in trouble. Or so I hope.
Could you share a little bit about your research and writing process? Particularly the act of adapting Seven Moons from an earlier version of the story, Chats with the Dead, which was published in India in 2020. How has the writing and editing experience been for you?
I spent a few years reading histories, visiting haunted houses, collecting ghost stories and absorbing local folklore. The plot began as a slasher horror set on a bus of aid workers travelling Sri Lanka’s coast after the tsunami. Which is a great story, if someone could write it. I sadly couldn’t. The thing collapsed under the weight of too many ideas. The only thing I salvaged from those dead drafts was the ghost on the bus, a photographer called Maali Almeida. I decided to tell the story from his point of view, and that’s when the thing kicked off.
Seven Moons is immersed in one of the darkest times in Sri Lanka’s history, and it certainly gives readers an insight into the violence and complexity of the civil war; however, apart from inciting people to learn more about the conflicts that have occurred, what other aspects of Sri Lankan culture would you like to convey to an international audience?
That it’s a warm and beautiful place, despite all the catastrophes. Despite all that’s happened, it’s still a cheerful and vibrant island filled with strange people and wonderful stories. And despite all its tragedies, it’s far from a dour place. It’s somewhere that everyone should visit because the landscape can be spectacular, the experiences extraordinary and because we need your dollars.
Despite being set against a backdrop of violence, Seven Moons has elements of humour throughout; I particularly enjoyed the section where you seem to be suggesting that the afterlife is essentially a very badly run government department… Was it important for you to inject humour into a dark situation?
That’s how Sri Lankans cope. We crack jokes about how far we've fallen. And every bit of bad news is followed by hilarious memes. But the afterlife as a South Asian bureaucracy was an idea that not only had comic potential but seemed to me a valid explanation for the country’s many messes.
Could you talk a little bit about your choice to use second person narration throughout the book?
I encountered a few technical problems in writing from the perspective of a dead person. What does a disembodied voice sound like? How can a ghost story work if you reveal the ghost on page one? In the end, it made sense, at least to me, that all that survives the decay of your corpse is the voice in your head. I don’t know about other people’s heads, but the voice in mine talks to me in the second person. When I made that decision, the story seemed to flow, so I went with it.
Maali seems to have a love/hate relationship with Sri Lanka. Is this a feeling that you can relate to?
Very much so. My generation grew up in the 80s with MTV, VHS and what then seemed like a forever war. Our childhoods were filled with curfews and bomb blasts and daily body counts from the war zone up north. When the war ended in 2009, we all had high hopes for the country. Finally, we would face our ghosts and shed our divisions. Investment would pour in, and the economy would thrive. People would prosper and the country would ascend to greatness. Of course, what happened was nothing of the sort. A decade later, we have seen dictatorships, assassinations, religious extremism, terror attacks and now bankruptcy. It is heart-breaking, but we still stay here and hope that things will get better. And occasionally they do.
Did researching and writing this book change your thoughts or ideas on the afterlife?
I never saw a ghost and am happy to keep it that way. I met many people with many views on the afterlife and the supernatural. The conclusion I arrived at is the same assumption I began with. Nobody knows a thing. When it comes to the afterlife, everyone makes up stories. I collected ideas from religions, philosophies, horror movies and near-death experiences. But no one version of the afterlife really convinced me. So, I made one up that did.
What other Sri Lankan authors have you enjoyed reading recently?
The ones I read frequently are blogger Indi Samarajiva, cricket scribe Andrew Fidel Fernando, and political commentator Thisaranee Gunasekera. My nightstand has the latest books from Ameena Hussein, Anuk Arudpragasam, Amanda Jayatissa, Ashok Ferrey and Yudhanjaya Wijeratne. And I’m eagerly awaiting new writings from Vivimarie Van Der Poorten, Nayomi Munaweera, Shyam Selvadurai and Romesh Gunasekera.
The above names cover thrillers, historical epics, sci-fi, comedy, literary fiction and represent a range of voices, ages and backgrounds. There’s plenty of stories in Sri Lanka, and thankfully many talented writers to tell them.
How does it feel to be longlisted for the Booker Prize 2022 – particularly as one of the writers on the longlist published in the UK by a small independent publisher?
I feel extremely fortunate to have found a publisher like Sort Of Books and an editor like Natania Jansz. Over the pandemic, we worked hard on the book’s many moving parts. I’m not sure a larger publisher would’ve been this patient, or this dedicated to the cause. We both thought the story could be something special, though I’m not sure either of us were talking or thinking Booker.
And lastly, do you judge a book by its cover?
Of course. Don’t we all? I just hope readers find Seven Moons as captivating and as engaging as Peter Dyer’s fabulous cover.
This interview is featured in our Reflection Issue.
