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The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida

Shehan Karunatilaka

Discussion: September 2022: Favorites

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September 2022: Favorites

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By Anita · 2 posts · 33 views

last updated Sep 01, 2022 06:30AM

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last updated Oct 09, 2022 12:41PM

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What Members Thought

Sep 28, 2022 Anita Pomerantz rated it it was ok

If I were going strictly on enjoyment of this book, my rating would be a one, but I will give the author kudos for excellent use of the second person - - a voice I happen to enjoy.

But other than that, I was not a fan.

I don't know much about Sri Lanka, but my impressions from this book are entirely negative - corrupt, homophobic, violent, backward, awful. Then, overlay this backdrop with a quasi mystery aka "who killed Maali Almeida?" and a B-movie plot about who possesses Maali's photograph nega ...more

161 likes · Like · see review

Jan 10, 2023 Booknblues rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: literary-fiction, preorder, historical-fiction, subdue, lgbtq, added-2022, booker-prize, magical-realism

After reading books which featured ghostly presences such as The Sentence, Creatures of Passage and At Night All Blood is Black in 2022, I suppose I am carrying this trend forward in 2023 reading The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida. This book is ghostly, ghoulish and ghastly, as well it should be set during the Sri Lankan civil war which may have killed 100, 000 people.

Maali Almeida, the war photographer is dead and he doesn't really know why or how. He has seven moons to figure it all out.

While t ...more

6 likes · Like · see review

Jan 20, 2025 Susan Tunis rated it liked it

2.5 stars. Really did not like.

4 likes · Like · see review

May 20, 2025 Theresa rated it liked it

Shelves: witchy, ghost-story, lgbtq, historicals-mystery-and-romance, india, east-asia, thrillers, fantasy, theater-film-music, satire

Maali Almeida wakes up battered and bruised, missing a sandal, the camera around his neck broken. He finds himself in a waiting room in the In-Between, that place where the dead linger before before moving on. Maali has no memory of how he came to die other than that he was murdered for some reason and that he needs to let 2 loved ones left behind where to find the photos and negatives he took of Sri Lanka's Civil War atrocities as a photojournalist. He discovers he has seven moons (nights) to s Maali Almeida wakes up battered and bruised, missing a sandal, the camera around his neck broken. He finds himself in a waiting room in the In-Between, that place where the dead linger before before moving on. Maali has no memory of how he came to die other than that he was murdered for some reason and that he needs to let 2 loved ones left behind where to find the photos and negatives he took of Sri Lanka's Civil War atrocities as a photojournalist. He discovers he has seven moons (nights) to solve his murder and communicate about the photos.

Each chapter, except for the last one, is one of those seven moons and quite a journey it is. It's both learning how to 'be' as a ghost, how to exist in the In Between, and regaining his memories and learning what he needs to know. It's all written and presented as a chaotic, messy, funny satire with magic and battles between good and evil. I can't help but think that the feeling of chaos and messiness that dominates the first half of the book echo the chaos and mess of Sri Lanka itself and its civil war on the larger scale, but also Maali's feelings and sense of confusion and loss when he wakes to find himself in the In Between. It's brutal, disturbing, yet fantastical and satirically funny.

The In Between is a very populated world, filled with angels, mentors, ghosts, spirits, even demons, one that becomes familiar to us as it does to Maali. Our time is spent entirely in Colombo, Sri Lanka in 1989, although there are many of Maali's memories about other places, primarily the many atrocities of war he photographed under contract to various groups and politicians. By the end we learn all about Maali as well, his life, secrets, desires, yearnings, disappointments - and final choice. We also learn who killed him.

Most of all, the horror that was the long Civil War in Sri Lanka in the 1980s (it endured until 2009 ended with the defeat of the India supported Tamils) is presented as the bloody ethnic cleansing (on both sides) it was. I ended up needing more than one Google rabbit hole dive to grasp the politics and history of Sri Lanka and its civil war. I knew nothing going into this, and it caused me to struggle a bit. I could have used a glossary in the book as it took me quite a while to learn the different parties, ethnic groups, and occasion Lankan vocabulary or title used. If you read this in ebook, the vocabulary isn't as much of a problem as you can easily search back to where it is first presented and thus defined in the book. It took me a long while to sort it out but I was also reading this very slowly due to having little time to read.

Did I like this? Did I find it humorous as so many critics and others have claimed it is? I found myself comparing it to another Booker winner from a few years earlier, also written by a person of color about the civil battles raging in his home country: A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James. That too was brutal as it dealt with violent gang warfare ruling Jamaica. It was also incredibly funny, appallingly funny and one of the most brilliant engaging books I have ever read. The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida comes up short compared to that. I did not pick up on the humor the same way, I did not get drawn into the characters, and though I can't say I had any great knowledge about Jamaican politics or history before reading it, somehow I was able to grasp it far more easily and readily as I read (and needed fewer Google deep dives to figure it out). I think I would have liked it better had I read it before the Marlon James.

In the end, I rated it 3.5 stars downgraded to 3 due to GR limited system.

I only stumbled across this reading guide on the Booker website after I'd read it. Wish I'd seen it earlier. https://thebookerprizes.com/media-cen.... There is also on the Booker website a list of 10 books that most influenced the author, and a link to a Spotify playlist of 80s music he listened to while writing. ...more

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Mar 03, 2023 Jen K rated it really liked it

Shelves: recommendations-for-j

Set in Colombo, Sri Lanka around 1990 and starting with the the death of Maali Almeida. Maali wakes in the in between place with death amnesia. He has played all the sides trying to take no sides his life as a war photographer hooking up the foreign press/ CIA, both sides of the civil conflict between the Tamils and the Sinhalese, the army and the Indian "support". He has a girlfriend but loves his boyfriend and all the other beautiful boys that come with being a handsome man. Apparently he went ...more

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Mar 22, 2025 Rachel Jones rated it it was ok

I’m not sure how this got categorized as magical realism. It’s a ghost story.

When I think of magical realism, the kind that Garcia Marquez and Rushdie write, characters and settings are so overfilled with passion and emotion that the magic bursts into the story, impossible to contain.

This book lacked almost all the kind of emotion or self-reflection that I am drawn to— in any kind of fiction.

I did enjoy the ghost/ghoul world, the dark humor, the snappy dialogue, and learning more about Sri Lan ...more

1 like · Like · see review

Mar 30, 2024 Kristel rated it really liked it

Shelves: booker

Reason read: Booker TBR takedown
This is a 2022 novel by Sri Lankan author Shehan Karunatilaka (Sri Lanken/British). This book won the Booker in 2022. I listened to the audio through Hoopla Digital and it was excellently narrated. The description of the book is "searing satire set amid the mayhem of Sri Lankan civil war. The story is told by dead Maali Almeida, a photographer who sets out to solve the mystery of his own death and is given one week ("seven moons") during which he can travel betwee ...more

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