Booker Prize-winner Shehan Karunatilaka is unlikely to make the protests of 2022 in Sri Lanka the theme of a book anytime soon. “It’s a self preservation thing. If you’re talking about south Asia, you know what it’s like. If you talk contemporary stuff, it can be quite dangerous,” says Karunatilaka, winner of the Booker Prize 2022 for The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida, which is set in 1990, against the backdrop of Sri Lanka’s civil war. “By the time I get to 2022, it will be 2042.”
But there is a sense of wonder at how Sri Lankans can unite around a single event — as with the 1996 World Cup win in the midst of ethnic strife, or last year’s protests. “We were all on the streets on July 9 (2022). It was a tremendous moment. It proved this divided country can unite behind a single idea even if the idea is to go home to the president,” said Karunatilaka during his session at the Times Litfest, adding wryly he usually watches protests from a safe distance.
Karunatilaka spoke about how the narrative around the protests has already changed and the protests are now being “demonised”. “That is the thing about events in Sri Lankan history. Many narratives are written and there is no definitive narrative.”
He said his first published novel, Chinaman, was the first time he saw a project through. “Once you get an idea, writing the next 300 pages is the tough part.” But research for his cricket-themed novel was easy: watching cricket matches set in the time of Sri Lanka’s World Cup win and “hanging around with drunken uncles”. Following his Booker win, publishers in both China and the US plan to publish Chinaman, albeit with the title changed, even though it is widely used cricketing jargon for a left-arm leg spinner. “It’s the one thing America and China agree on. The title of my book needs a change.”
Of his unpublished first novel, Karunatilaka said, “I was wise enough to know the book did not work, and I moved on.” On his soon-to-be-released collection of short stories, which he decided to compile after he realised that he had written more than 30 over several years, he quipped, “Short stories are what I did while I was procrastinating on novels.”
Asked if he had any advice for aspiring young authors in the audience, he said, “Write only if you find a story will not leave you alone and you are the only one who can tell it the way it should be told.”
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