The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida

De: Shehan Karunatilaka

Narrado por: Shivantha Wijesinha

An Instant National Bestseller

Winner of the 2022 Booker Prize, The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida is a searing satire set amid the mayhem of the Sri Lankan civil war.

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 serene Beira Lake and he has no idea who killed him. In a country where scores are settled by death squads, suicide bombers, and hired goons, the list of suspects is depressingly long, as the ghouls and ghosts with grudges who cluster round can attest. But even in the afterlife, time is running out for Maali. He has seven moons to contact the man and woman he loves most and lead them to the photos that will rock Sri Lanka.

Ten years after his prize-winning novel Chinaman established him as one of Sri Lanka's foremost authors, Shehan Karunatilaka is back with a "thrilling satire" (Economist) and rip-roaring state-of-the-nation epic that offers equal parts mordant wit and disturbing, profound truths.

©2022 Shehan Karunatilaka (P)2022 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books

Interesting and very creative

This is a fascinating book and filled with horror and beauty. However, it does take patience and a lot of concentration to listen to. I was somewhat annoyed with the first couple of hours of listening because it was confusing before the plot started to truly unfold. I think if people hang in there, they will eventually get totally sucked into the story. The history lessons scattered throughout are a window to such enlightening facts about this amazing place.

A+

Beautiful and strange and haunting and engrossing. Definitely recommend both the book and the narration.

A very different presentation

I really liked this book. It brings forward the plague of violence some cultures seem to have . I think if you lived in that part of the world for any amount of time it would be easier to understand some of the absurdities this story presents. The narrator was fabulous

Great read

A skillful narrator who plays myriad characters well. Terrific, riveting story that mixes macabre with mania and cruelty with comedy.

What a terrific book

Full of surprises. A history of the characters, fictional, intertwined with a late 20th century of Sri Lanka, the violence in Sri Lanka. Well deserving of the Booker Prize.

Narrator brings text to life!

I listened with the book in front of me and was so glad I did. The novel is intricate with a panoply of characters. The narrators story telling gives coherence and context to the various story lines and animates the vividly portrayed characters. If I had tried to read on my own I would have stayed lost.

Amazing

I can't stop listening to this book. Absolutely amazing story and meaningful words.... If I am not reading this book, I'm thinking about it.

Brilliant narration

Superb story and brilliant narration. Read and listen in order to get the most from this Booker winner.

Dazzling

It's almost impossible to write anything that would do justice to this book.

The creative narration (in the book) was one of the first alerts that this was not an ordinary journey. The events described quickly confirmed it.

Fair warning that, since the story occurred during the Sri Lankan civil strife, the details described are often harrowing - even gruesome. It is the style of prose that hypnotizes and keeps one glued to the story.

The complex plot was enhanced with all the commentary on personal to political and religious as well as general social behaviors.

The pace was relentless, providing glimpses of the outcome without fully showing its hand.

I've not read any contemporary work that rises to the brilliant level of this book, which won the 2022 Booker Prize. A shame that it didn't also win the Nobel in Literature.

Last but definitely not least, Shivantha Wijesinha's narration was flawless. His expressive pronunciation of the Sri Lankan patois gave life to all the characters. There were times where his voice was a sinister seethe, while others, quietly empathetic. His reading put the story in the intended setting.

Super interesting

You know how sometimes you read a book, and fell like it barely counted as a real book? This is not that. This is a stand alone, something like nothing I’ve ever read before.