Karunatilaka is a Sri Lankan writer. He grew up in Colombo, studied in New Zealand and has lived and worked in London, Amsterdam and Singapore.
His 2010 debut novel Chinaman: The Legend of Pradeep Mathew won the Commonwealth Prize, the DSC Prize, the Gratiaen Prize and was adjudged the second-greatest cricket book of all time by Wisden.
The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida, published on 4 August 2022 by the independent London publisher Sort of Books, was announced as the winner of the 2022 Booker Prize in the fiction category. The announcement was made at a ceremony at the Roundhouse in London on 17 October.
The story, written in second person, is set in Sri Lanka in the 1980s. It was widely praised for the humorous daring. Judges said the novel “fizzes with energy, imagery and ideas against a broad, surreal vision of the Sri Lankan civil wars. Slyly, angrily comic.”
Karunatilaka, who became the second Sri Lankan to win the Booker Prize, was honoured by Queen Consort Camilla.
The 47-year-old author said the aim of the novel is to make Sri Lanka read and help them realise the concepts of corruption, race-baiting, and cronyism.
But this story isn’t only about Karunatilaka’s achievements as a writer.
After the author was announced the winner of the 2022 Booker Prize, several netizens took to Twitter to highlight an article by a leading British daily that reportedly mentioned that Karunatilaka didn’t pay for his flight to pick up the award.
The article said that organisers of the Booker Prize award funded Karunatilaka’s flight to pick up the award. Sharing screenshots, several users said the report was patronising, racist, and disrespectful to the writer.
People commenting on her Tweet had similar things to say.
@monisha_rajesh This is so wrong. If I’m invited to an event, the organisers or publishers usually pay. Why are the… t.co/fOBb5bKaMS
— ANI (@ANI) Oct 18, 2022
@monisha_rajesh Oh come on!! Patronising on so many levels, sick of this journalism. undefined
— ANI (@ANI) Oct 18, 2022
A user wrote, “I’m not an author but I’d have hoped the organisers pay the travel for the finalists like in many other prestigious awards. The coverage is racism pure and simple.”
