Awarded with the Booker Prize 2022

Nominated for the RSL Ondaatje Prize 2023

A magical realistic novel of value set during the civil war in Sri Lanka.

Colombo, 1990. Maali Almeida, a war photographer, gambler, and secretly gay, wakes up dead in what seems to be a celestial visa office. His dismembered body sinks into the serene Beira Lake, and he has no idea who killed him. In a time where differences are settled by death squads, suicide bombers, and hired assassins, the list of suspects is hopelessly long, as the ghouls and ghosts with their grudges gathering around him can attest.

But even in the afterlife, time is running out for Maali. He has seven moons to try to contact the two people he loves most and to guide them to a hidden cache of photos that will turn Sri Lanka upside down.

Sri Lanka's foremost author delivers an epic story, filled with biting humor and haunting truths.

“Recalls the biting irony and surrealism of Gogol and Bulgakov.” - Guardian

“Outstanding... the most significant work of Sri Lankan literature in the last decade.” - New European

Pages: 432, Dimensions: 12.8x12.8cm