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 wartorn Columbo confronting the ghosts and murderers who haunt Sri Lanka, in a country where the past is never really dead.
(Image: Shehan Karunatilaka. Photo credit: Dominic Sansoni.)
Henning Mankell - Faceless Killers
Val McDermid - A Place of Execution
Boris Akunin - The Winter Queen
Jo Nesbo - The Redbreast
Javier Cercas - Soldiers Of Salamis
PJ O'Rourke - Eat The Rich
Bernhard Schlink - The Reader
Damon Galgut - The Good Doctor
Kamila Shamsie - Burnt Shadows
Barbara Kingsolver
World Book Club: Carlos Ruiz Zafon
World Book Club: David Mitchell
World Book Club: Richard Ford
World Book Club: J.M.G. Le Clezio
World Book Club: John Boyne
World Book Club: Andrea Levy
Kiran Desai
World Book Club: James Ellroy
World Book Club: Alaa Al Aswany
World Book Club: Gunter Grass
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
The Modern West
Global News Podcast
Friday Night Comedy from BBC Radio 4
The Infinite Monkey Cage
You’re Dead to Me
Elis James and John Robins