Shehan Karunatilaka

Shehan Karunatilaka was born in 1975 in Galle, southern Sri Lanka, and grew up in Colombo. He was educated at S. Thomas' Preparatory School in Sri Lanka, then at Whanganui Collegiate School and Massey University in New Zealand, where he graduated in English literature. Before becoming a full-time writer, he worked in advertising at agencies including McCann and BBDO, and played bass with Sri Lankan rock bands. Karunatilaka gained international acclaim with his debut novel Chinaman: The Legend of Pradeep Mathew (2010), which won the Commonwealth Book Prize and DSC Prize for South Asian Literature. His second novel The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida (2022), set in the supernatural afterlife of a war photographer in 1990s Colombo during Sri Lanka's civil war, won the 2022 Booker Prize. He has lived and worked in London, Amsterdam, and Singapore.