A review by abbie_
The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka

adventurous challenging dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced

4.0

I found last year’s Booker prizewinner in a charity shop for 50p and I can conclude that that was 50p well spent. One of the more challenging books I’ve read in a while, The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida feels like a lengthier book than it is. That sounds like criticism but I don’t mean it that way - this book is expansive, the scope of it spilling over its 384 pages.
.
Even though I’ve read a couple of books which focus on the Sri Lankan civil war, I still felt a bit adrift initially. Karunatilaka throws you right in the midst of the ferocious violence and bloody politics which reigned in Sri Lanka for over 25 years. At the start of the book, we know that Maali Almeida is dead, but we don’t know how or why or who killed him. He’s in the afterlife, surrounded by Helpers who tell him he has seven nights to carry out his unfinished business - namely, lead his boyfriend and best friend to a box of photos that would have been more than enough to get Maali murdered.
.
There’s just so much going on in this book. We get real world politics and injustices (1990s Sri Lanka was not a good time to be a gay man), but we also have the dramas of the afterlife playing out in tandem. Terrifying demons made up of souls stacked on souls, blind men whispering words of the dead to the living, gangs of ghosts urgently seeking vengeance on those who wronged them on earth. It’s all a bit mind-boggling but if you can stick with it (it took me a good 120 pages lol) then I do think the pay off is worth it. 
.
Bearing witness is the most important theme here - Maali’s final quest is to expose the brutality and carnage of the civil war, with photos he’s spent years taking and then trying to forget through booze, gambling and men. The horrors of the war are spared no detail here, and that combined with the frequent moments of dark humour make for some serious literary whiplash. Glad I persevered through the slow beginning!
Expand filter menu Content Warnings