The Booker Prize 2022 announced on October 17 went to a work of genre interest.

• Shehan Karunatilaka, The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida (Sort Of Books)

The Sri Lankan writer’s novel is a supernatural satire set amid a murderous Sri Lankan civil war.

Maali Almeida, war photographer, gambler and closet gay, has woken up dead in what seems to be a celestial visa office. His dismembered body is sinking in the Beira Lake and he has no idea who killed him. At a time when scores are settled by death squads, suicide bombers and hired goons, the list of suspects is depressingly long.

But even in the afterlife, time is running out for Maali. He has ‘seven moons’ to try and contact the man and woman he loves most and lead them to a hidden cache of photos that will rock Sri Lanka. 

The £50,000 prize, for a single work of fiction published in the UK in English, also gives the other five writers on the shortlist £2,500 each.