Sri Lanka, 1990. The country is torn apart by civil war. Maali Almeida, a war photographer and gambler, wakes up and realizes he is dead. His soul has been transferred to the anteroom of the other world, and we hear his voice.

He has only seven nights left to find out who killed him, while the government and the rebels are searching for a box of photographs, likely evidence of the crime. "A supernatural thriller that breaks the boundaries not only between different genres, but also between life and death, body and spirit, East and West" (statement from the Chairman of the Booker Prize Committee 2022).

Shehan Karunatilaka (born 1975), one of the most important writers from Sri Lanka, has also been honored with the Commonwealth Prize.