The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida

De: Shehan Karunatilaka

Narrado por: Shivantha Wijesinha

Winner of the Booker Prize, 2022

Colombo, 1990. Maali Almeida, war photographer, gambler and closet queen, has woken up dead in what seems like a celestial visa office. His dismembered body is sinking in the Beira Lake and he has no idea who killed him. At a time when scores are settled by death squads, suicide bombers and hired goons, the list of suspects is depressingly long, as the ghouls and ghosts who cluster around him can attest.

But even in the afterlife, time is running out for Maali. He has seven moons to try and contact the man and woman he loves most and lead them to a hidden cache of photos that will rock Sri Lanka.

2022, Booker Prize, Winner

2023, British Book Awards Audiobook of the Year, Short-listed

©2022 Shehan Karunatilaka (P)2022 Bolinda Publishing Pty Ltd

Reseñas de la Crítica

"Karunatilaka has a real lightness of touch." (The Observer)

"Celebrate the arrival of the Great Sri Lankan Novel." (The Times)

Moving but not easy to listen to

An exceptional combination of harrowing history, otherworldly images dark humor and a murder mystery. Something like a cross between The Sympathizer and Lincoln in the Bardo. Highly recommended.

Learning a lot about Sri Lanka

It was a very entertaining book, with interesting features and characters. It was fun to get to know much more about Sri Lanka. The readers voice was very good and due to his Sri Lanka accent he gave additional life to the story. it is a philosophical book but also a political book. I truly enjoyed it.

What an amazing story!

Something completely different! Having visited Sri Lanka several times I have been well aware of the political problems so this book really hit home.

Tragic and gripping and even a bit magical

This has been one of my best listens. I'd now like to get the book so I can stay with the words a bit longer. The narrator was brilliant.

Brilliant

Essential, particularly for those who want to know about Sri Lanka’s recent history. A riveting account of an avoidable disaster which happened in a country whose intricate history has lasted more than 3000 years.

A serendipity

It was a serendipity to discover this book on the island, Serendib alias Sri Lanka. An intelligent and interesting story telling and a wonderful narration.

Book/listen of the year for me

Brilliant story-telling, complex plots and ideas, and funny with it - gallows humour.
Excellent narration - the perfect tone, intonation.
I LOVED IT!!!!

What happends after you die

A wonderful, rich tale from Sri Lanka. I absolutt love it. Moving and shocking, so imaginative. And the actor Reading is the best I have ever heard. I love his voices! Thank you so much for this!

Differs from the average in mostly good ways

I like a lot about this book, but I have a single critique, which weighs enough to make me remove a star: it's overly specific. It is very insistent on being a story about a specific point of the political history of Sri Lanka, and while there are some things that you are provided context for, some things you can understand with some effort through context, a lot of it is clearly intent on you either diving deep into wikipedia or already being familiar from somewhere with those tremolous times to understand the references. "Yavor, you nutsack full of nitpicks" - I hear you cry out - "This book wasn't written for a western audience, you can't criticise it for not existing in your specific bubble!". Yeah, well, it is translated, and even narrated, to be published in the west, isn't it? It asks to be purchased in the west, does it not? It absolutely is open to criticism about its aspects which end up immersion breaking due to simply being too concrete, especially when a more generalized story would have been able to focus on what in my opinion actually makes the book special and what I liked about this book.

This is essentially an extremely witty, extremely well-written narrative about a man at a conflict with himself, trying to be the best he can be and actually be a good person, while figuring out exactly what that means and also trying to do it in a world that really doesn't want to allow him to do that. It is a story full of sharp, dark humor of coming to terms with not achieving your goals in life, and possibly defining what they truly are when it is too late to do anything helping them come to fruition. All that is built on the back of the very ambitious writing in the second person (hard to pull off, adding a layer an immersion similar to the first person but definitively requiring a level of skill above the average on the writing side) and actually imaginative interpretation of a limbo state, with a fantastical core that isn't just a set dressing, but has actual depth. It is reminiscent of the things people praise Pratchett about, the layers of real world satire well-painted within an actual canvas of creative imagery. It is about a world that doesn't take itself too seriously because it is too absurdly cruel to be for real, and well, that hits hard in an era where a harsh reality really can be boiled down to a bunch of memes. I enjoyed my experience with this one, and again, I wish I wasn't taken out of it on occasion by what the author felt was mandatory part of its core. You know what, fair play, I see what Shehan Karunatilaka wanted to do and actually see them managing to do it, that is rare as hell as well.

I definitely recommend this read.

Oh, a word about the narration: absolutely mind-blowing. Shivantha Wijesinha has a really variety of voices for different characters, and an accent he can stress with a different degree on command, adding an immersive layer to this read that I cannot imagine anyone else could do any more justice. I think this is the definitive way to experience this particular novel and while for a very few books I could say one medium is better than any other (it's not the book cover that matters, after all) I feel like this is really the best way I could have ever heard this book in my head.

The story is wonderful.

The story is great, the concept is really interesting and I truly appreciated some of the characters and the plot. However, the style it's told in, is definitely not my thing. It's a bit like a Quentin Tarantino movie - so grotesque and in your face. You either love it or hate it, I don't see how you'd be ambivalent to it... I don't like Tarantino movies either. But I can appreciate why they are liked by others. So overall, I'm glad I read it, but I can't recommend it without major reservations. Also, I find it a bit strange the narrator's choice to overemphasize sertain characters' accents. They were made to sound almost ridiculously comical.