April 25^th 2025 | 6:30 p.m.

National Archaeological Institute with Museum at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences  

Conversation with:

Shehan Karunatilaka, Sri Lanka

Moderator: Angel Igov

 

For the first time in Bulgaria – the 2022 Booker Prize Winner and one of the brightest writers in today's Asian literature – Shehan Karunatilaka!

We can read in Bulgarian the novel with which he won the prestigious award: The Seven Moons of Mali Almeida (translation: Petya Petkova, Labyrinth Publishing House, 2023). In fact, this is only his second novel, which Shehan Karunatilaka wrote in different versions with several titles. For some time, the author had difficulties in finding a foreign publisher to publish the book. He says that Sri Lankan politics seemed “esoteric and confusing”, and many publishers found “the mythology and world-building to be inscrutable and difficult for the Western readers”. After finding a publisher who agreed to publish the novel after revisions, Karunatilaka worked on the new version for another two years.
With his biting wit and dark imagery, Shehan Karunatilaka is the most significant representative of new Sri Lankan literature. The Seven Moons of Mali Almeida has received serious attention and critical acclaim. Shehan Karunatilaka says that he is greatly inspired by the work of Kurt Vonnegut, but we can also read that “The obvious literary comparisons are with the magical realism of Salman Rushdie and Gabriel García Márquez. But the novel also recalls the mordant wit and surrealism of Nikolai Gogol’s Dead Souls or Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita.” (The Guardian)

ⓘ Shehan Karunatilaka grew up in Colombo, Sri Lanka and studied in New Zealand. He has published three children’s books, and writes rock songs, screenplays and travelogues. He emerged on the international literary scene with the award-winning novel Chinaman. He also writes sports, music and travel articles for The Guardian, Rolling Stone, Wisden, GQ, Conde Nast and National Geographic. He has over 20 years of experience in advertising agencies, technology companies, media companies and start-ups in Singapore, London, Colombo, Sydney and Amsterdam. He currently lives in Sri Lanka.