In Lanka, there is collective amnesia about the civil war: Booker Prize-winning author Shehan Karunatilaka

Kozhikode, Jan 14 Believe it or not, it was quite a task for Sri Lankan author Shehan Karunatilaka to find a UK publisher for his second novel 'The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida', which went on to win the prestigious Booker Prize - 2022. "Frankly, those in the West are not clamoring for Sri Lankan books about wars that people have forgotten," he smiles.

Adding that he discovered about winning the prize with the rest of the world, Karunatilaka says that while with the long and shortlist, people do get a heads up, but that was not to be in his case. "Frankly, I went to the ceremony quite content that the book had been short-listed. The judges usually drag it out while announcing the winner, but these just went for it. I walked up and made the speech, and then the next 48 hours were just about interviews. Of course, it has sunk in by now," he tells .

The prize-winning book revolves around the recently deceased Maali Almeida, a war photographer, who wakes up as a ghost and has seven days to identify his killer. The story is set in the 1980s, during the early years of Sri Lanka's civil war between government forces and the LTTE.

The author, who is attending the 6th Kerala Literature Festival

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