This is the winner of the Booker Prize 2022 - and the other 5 books on the shortlist
Booker prize / Alan Garner becomes oldest author to be shortlisted
- The Booker Prize 2022 has been won by Sri Lankan author Shehan Karunatilaka.
- The shortlist featured six works of fiction by authors across four continents and five different nationalities.
A novel about a dead war photographer on a mission in the afterlife - The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida - has won the Booker Prize 2022, written by Sri Lankan writer Shehan Karunatilaka.
Set in 1990s Sri Lanka during the country's civil war, Karunatilaka's second novel follows gay war photographer and gambler Maali Almeida, who wakes up dead.
Time is of essence for Maali, who has "seven moons" to reach out to loved ones and guide them to hidden photos he has taken depicting the brutality of his country's conflict.
At the first in-person ceremony of the annual $56,810 literary prize for novels written in the English language since 2019, the author received a trophy from Queen Consort Camilla.
"My hope for 'Seven Moons' is that in the not too distant future... it is read in a Sri Lanka that has understood that these ideas of corruption, race baiting and cronyism have not worked and will never work," Karunatilaka said in his acceptance speech.
"I hope it is read in a Sri Lanka that learns from its stories and that 'Seven Moons' will be in the fantasy section of the bookshop and will... not be mistaken for realism or political satire."
"This is a metaphysical thriller, an afterlife noir that dissolves the boundaries not just of different genres, but of life and death, body and spirit, east and west," judges chair Neil MacGregor said.
These were the other five novels on the Booker Prize shortlist 2022.
Glory by NoViolet Bulawayo
Glory is a novel about colonization and uprising, told by animals and written by NoViolet Bulawayo, who grew up in Zimbabwe. The book’s fictional land is controlled by a charismatic horse who becomes a tyrant and rules for 40 years. Booker describes the book as a political fable with parallels to Orwell’s “Animal Farm, Zimbabwe and the fate of many African nations”.
Treacle Walker by Alan Garner
Treacle Walker is the work of 88-year-old English writer Alan Garner, the oldest author ever to be shortlisted for the Booker Prize. The book’s protagonists are Joe Coppock, a boy recovering from illness, and Treacle Walker, a junk dealer and healer. Their meeting starts a dream-like story that helps Joe make sense of the world. Myth, folklore and the “fluidity of time” are explored in the novel, Booker says.
Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan
Small Things Like These, by Irish author Claire Keegan, is set in an Irish town in 1985 and is “dense with moral themes”, says Booker. The plot explores the treatment of women in a mother and baby home run by the church, the Irish Independent newspaper explains. The story follows Bill Furlong, a local coal and timber merchant who delivers to the convent, and his struggle to get the community to take notice.
The Trees by Percival Everett
The Trees, by American author Percival Everett, is set in Mississippi, where detectives are investigating a series of brutal murders. The plot links back to the real racist murder in 1955 of a 14-year-old Black youth, Emmett Till. The novel is a “powerful condemnation of racism and police violence”, Booker says.
Oh William!, by Elizabeth Strout
Oh William!, by American author Elizabeth Strout, follows fictional heroine Lucy Barton, a successful writer living in New York. When she reconnects with her first husband, William, the couple unwrap the story of their lives together, including love, loss and family secrets. According to Booker this is a novel about an ordinary person full of “probing psychological insight”.
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