A “rollercoaster journey through life and death.” That’s how judges described Shehan Karunatilaka’s The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida, winner of the 2022 Booker Prize. Hosted by local author Balli Kaur Jaswal, don’t miss this opportunity to listen to the world-renowned author as he discusses his literary journey and shares some of the inspirations behind his work.
VENUE: Online
EVENT WEBSITE: Eventbrite
DATE AND TIME
20 Feb 2024, 7pm-8pm
About Shehan Karunatilaka
Shehan Karunatilaka emerged on to the global literary stage in 2011, when he won the Commonwealth Book Prize, the DSL and Gratiaen Prize for his debut novel, Chinaman. The book was declared the second-best cricket book of all time by Wisden.
Born in Galle, Sri Lanka, in 1975, Karunatilaka grew up in Colombo, studied in New Zealand and has lived and worked in London, Amsterdam and Singapore. He currently lives in Sri Lanka. His songs, scripts and stories have been published in Rolling Stone, GQ and National Geographic. He has worked as an advertising copywriter and played guitar in a band called Independent Square.
His second novel, The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida, was announced as the winner of the Booker Prize 2022 on October 17 at a ceremony in London.
About Balli Kaur Jaswal
Balli Kaur Jaswal is the author of five novels, including the internationally bestselling Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows, which was selected by Reese Witherspoon’s book club. She was named a Best Young Australian Novelist by the Sydney Morning Herald after the publication of her debut novel Inheritance. Her follow-up novel Sugarbread was shortlisted for the Singapore Literature Prize. Jaswal’s short stories and essays have appeared in the UK Sunday Express, Cosmopolitan Magazine, The New York Times, Harper's Bazaar, and Best Australian Short Stories. A former writing fellow at the University of East Anglia, she has taught creative writing at Yale-NUS College and Nanyang Technological University, where she completed her Ph.D. in South Asian diaspora writing. Jaswal’s latest novel is Now You See Us, a murder-mystery about domestic workers in Singapore.