Book Group 1

Seven Moon of Maadi Almeida

The author says –

“1989 was the darkest year in my memory, where there was an ethnic war, a Marxist uprising, a foreign military presence and state counterterror squads. It was a time of assassinations, disappearances, bombs and corpses. But by the end of the 1990s, most of the antagonists were dead, so I felt safer writing about these ghosts, rather than those closer to the present”

The novel opens in the bureaucratic office of the Afterlife. The main protagonist being the ghost of the recently dead war photographer Maali Almeida. Written entirely in the second person Seven Moons of Maali Almeida is set against the backdrop of the real-life civil war that took place in Sri Lanka.

Winner of the 2022 Booker prize, it is at once a true account of the Sri Lankan Civil war, a ghost story, a pacy murder mystery, as well as a philosophical musing with a very human element. It wrenches your heartstrings; makes you chuckle at the witty one-liners and makes you contemplate various whodunit scenarios.

The story follows renegade war photographer Maali Almeida, who is tasked with solving his own murder. Embroiled in red tape, memories of war, his own ethical dilemmas and his awkward relationship with his mother, his official girlfriend and his secret boyfriend, Maali is constantly interrupted by the overly chatty dead folks breezing through the afterlife, as he struggles to unravel his own death.

The author set the book in 1989, as this was when "The Tigers, The Army, The Indian peacekeepers, The JVP terrorists and State death squads were all killing each other at a prolific rate." A time of curfews, bombs, assassinations, abductions and mass graves seemed to the author to be "a perfect setting for a ghost story, a detective tale or a spy thriller. Or all three."

Our book group met over a delicious Nasi Lemak lunch as we discussed politics, debated religious beliefs and argued over our favourite characters. Our discussion flowed as energetically and effortlessly through taboo topics as the book we had just read. Hands down one of the best books we have read and re-read in recent times.

Deepika Gupta