The Literary City - Winner of The Booker Prize 2022 Shehan Karunatilaka

Winner of The Booker Prize 2022 Shehan Karunatilaka

11/01/22 • 47 min

There is an old saying, “Dead men tell no tales”.
But how wonderful and useful it would be if we could follow a conversation into the afterlife? And what more wonderful than if you wrote about it and then won the Booker Prize for your efforts? Is this the stuff from which dreams are made?
Clearly true if you consider my guest today, Shehan Karunatilaka, winner of the The Booker Prize 2022.

In Shehan’s novel, The Seven Moons Of Maali Almeida, the main protagonist is dead but the character is alive. The novel—set in a terrible patch of Sri Lankan history between 1983 and 1990—is the story of a photojournalist who dies. In the afterlife, he finds himself in the "In-between"—a state between "Down There" which is life on earth and "The Light"—and where that is, is revealed at the end of the book.
The protagonist is confronted by—of all things—a bureaucracy in the afterlife and he is told he has a week, or seven moons, to find out how he died if he wanted to make it to The Light.
The novel touches the reader in many ways. Not the least to wonder what happens if we were indeed to find bureaucracy in the afterlife. Even the disappointment that visits us upon such a proposition is not rational. Yet...
Shehan uses the second person as a literary device. Literary fiction written in the second-person is rare. This style is unusual because the narrator tells the story to the reader using the personal pronoun "you." The perspective suggests that the reader is the protagonist.
Shehan Karunatilaka’s prose is compelling...gripping, even. The turns of phrase and word come together like play dough in what seems to be an absently crafted sculpture.
Intelligent prose is never without its humour and Shehan’s prose has a river of funny as its undercurrent.
He defines a queue in Sri Lanka as “...an amorphous curve with multiple entry points.” (Clearly, a south Asian malaise.)
"The afterlife is a tax office and everyone wants a rebate."
"You drift among the broken people with blood on their breath."
All this and you are still on Page 10.
But humour is peppered through the entire narrative and some of it is recognisable to typical snarky South Indian humour. This on page 135: ”...frilly shirt tailored by a blind man”.
In the context though, the humour is a noir humour that characterises places in the world that are in strife—such as Ireland, parts of the Middle East and Shehan’s home country, Sri Lanka.
I really cannot wait to ask him about all this.
At the time of this recording, Shehan has just won the Booker Prize, a little over a week ago. I know that the entire world’s media waits to talk to him and so, I am particularly happy that he chose to spend this time with me.
ABOUT SHEHAN KARUNATILAKA
Shehan Karunatilaka is a Sri Lankan writer whose first book, Chinaman, won the Commonwealth Book Prize, the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature and the Gratiaen Prize, and was shortlisted for the Shakti Bhatt First Book Prize. Seven Moons of Maali Almeida is his second book, it won the Booker Prize 2022.

Buy The Seven Moons Of Maali Almeida: https://amzn.to/3gUhnDw
WHAT'S THAT WORD?!
Co-host Pranati "Pea" Madhav joins Ramjee Chandran in "What's That Word?!", where they discuss the interesting origins of the phrase, "DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES"
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TJS George And The Inevitability Of The Absurd

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There is a point late in the lives of the very accomplished, when they unscrew the caps of their pens and write a compelling memoir of their lives.
But how does a self-effacing journalist write an autobiography? By not writing one. Not in the stock sense, anyway.
My guest today is journalist TJS George. He is 94 years old. His life as a working journalist began when he was 19. That was in 1947—in the months following India’s Independence. And ever since, George has had a ringside seat to India—and to every twist in its tale.
Journalists always have the best stories. After years of working their profession as a “little pitcher with big ears”—fly on the wall, if you prefer—they wait impatiently to fill the ears of the world with anecdotes.
But instead of all that, George’s latest book, “The Dismantling Of India”, is the closest we have got to an autobiography—unless, of course, he decides to up and write a classic memoir.
I read this book as a narrative history of India to be harvested from the biographical portraits of 35 Indians. They include people from art, entertainment, politics, science, business, crime and cause—profiles—at times in contrast; sometimes in concert.
But the word “dismantling” in the title of the book amounts to disappointment, because from the day he joined as a rookie reporter, the newly-born India has been on a downward trajectory, aging poorly—day after year after decade.
Biographies bring people to life, as a tapestry of the stories of their lives. An autobiography is supposed to do the same thing—a personal narrative gives an author licence—to a point of view, an explanation, or even an excuse. George has no use for excuses and his writing leaves no wiggle room for explanation.
The reason I equate this book to an autobiography is because it seemed to me that he was expressing his own life story through the aggregate of the lives of those he has profiled.
TJS George’s writing is not misplaced modesty. It seems to come from a conviction that he is—first and last—a journalist and thus, the story should come first, second and last. And any trace of the writer’s presence be excised—except by good example, to every journalist.
ABOUT TJS GEORGE
He has worked as a journalist and editor across India and Southeast Asia. He is co-founder before of Asiaweek in Hong Kong. Returning to India, he has worked with the Indian Express as Editor and as a columnist. He has written 20 books, including biographies of Krishna Menon, Lee Kuan Yew, Nargis and MS Subbulakshmi. He is a recipient of the 2011 Padma Bhushan and numerous other awards. He lives in Bangalore.
Buy The Dismantling Of India: https://amzn.to/3zaug2x
WHAT'S THAT WORD?!
Co-host Pranati "Pea" Madhav joins Ramjee Chandran in "What's That Word?!", where they discuss the interesting origins of the word, "SCOUNDREL."
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Jerry Pinto, His Muse And The Education Of Yuri

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The way I read the book, the story is about the travails of a young Indian who must make the long and labyrinthine transition from boy to man.
A difficult job when a large offset of one's opportunities in middle class India is being beholden to family, with conservative family elders and conversations in a minefield of verbal taboos.
It is hard to hold down an adult conversation with elders—always an uncomfortable thing—and incurably hard to avoid.
To wit, when you are spoken to as a perennial child right into your adulthood, there is little scope for quiet and confident assertiveness and individualism. Personas must change to suit whatever pleases the current conversation.
And all this while there's the business of growing up to contend with. Sometimes so difficult a job that many don't ever fully make it to what might be considered manhood—at least by the the stereotypical norms of the rest of the world.
An ethic that is skilfully captured by my guest today the author, Jerry Pinto.
You might say that Jerry understands the Indian middle class. His book The Education of Yuri is what people in literature would call, a bildungsroman—which is a novel about the growing up years.
It is a story of a feckless 15-year old middle class Indian teen who must make decisions about where his life is headed in the time of changing goalposts, moods and largely predictable hormones.
Jerry Pinto’s narrative sucks you into the story.
The Education Of Yuri captures the college ethic of the 70s and hits you with a litany of cultural references from the decades. Those who grew up around then would smile at references like...
“Ground Control to Major Tom”
James Hadley Chase's "No Orchids For Miss Blandish"
Hotel California... "Bring your alibis"
The 70s also were a time when the contrasting pressures of what someone wanted to do and what was good for them could be hard to handle.
So Jerry places his protagonist in a situation where he is largely free of oppressive family pressures and through Yuri’s experiences, he allows the reader a view of how society was structured.
Yuri’s decision to abandon his course in the sciences in favour of the liberal arts being an example.
And then Jerry captures the disposition of the 70s English language major and empties out his literary arsenal in this book and uses these artfully in his descriptions of Yuri’s normal life of friendships, tawdry sexual escapades, romance and inevitably, poetry.
I've been a fan of his writing—his columns and books—for many years. And it is therefore my pleasure to present him on my show.
ABOUT JERRY PINTO
Jerry Pinto is a writer and poet based in Mumbai. His books include the novels Em and the Big Hoom (winner of the Hindu Prize and the Crossword Book Award) and Murder in Mahim (winner of the Valley of Words Award, and shortlisted for the Crossword Award); the non-fiction book Helen: The Life and Times of an H-Bomb (winner of the National Award for the Best Book on Cinema); and two books of poetry, I Want a Poem and Other Poems and Asylum. Jerry Pinto received the Windham-Campbell Prize and the Sahitya Akademi Award.

Buy The Education Of Yuri: https://amzn.to/3DJ9Ejl
WHAT'S THAT WORD?!
Co-host Pranati "Pea" Madhav joins Ramjee Chandran in "What's That Word?!", where they discuss the interesting origins of the word, "FECKLESS"
WANT TO BE ON THE SHOW?
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The Literary City - Winner of The Booker Prize 2022 Shehan Karunatilaka

Transcript

VOICE OVER: CityCast from Explocity

READING BY SHEHAN KARUNATILAKA (SK):

The chances of finding a pearl in an oyster are 1 in 12,000. The chances of being hit by lightning are 1 in 700,000. The odds of the soul surviving the body's death, one in nothing, one in nada, one in zilch. You must be asleep. Of this, you are certain. Soon you will wake.

And then you have this terrible thought, more terrible than this savage I