Episode description

Harriett Gilbert and readers around the globe talk to acclaimed Sri Lankan writer Shehan Karunatilaka about his Booker Prize-winning novel The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida.

Almeida, a gay war photographer, recently deceased, with secrets aplenty, awakes to find himself sitting in line in an ethereal visa office, determined to find out who has murdered him. In a Sri Lanka beset by civil war, death squads and terrorist bombs, the list of suspects is long. He has 'seven moons' a week, to make contact with and steer his two closest friends to the evidence stash that could uncover the culprit and change the course of his country's destiny.

Navigating the afterlife with a mix of sardonic wit and streetwise sensibility Maali roams war-torn Columbo confronting the ghosts and murderers who haunt Sri Lanka, in a country where the past is never really dead.

(Photo: Shehan Karunatilaka. Credit: Dominic Sansoni)