What went through your mind on winning the Booker Prize?

When I finished ‘The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida’ and sent it to the publisher in 2021, that was the real high moment because after that, everything is out of your control. One can never tell if it will click or disappear completely.

When the Booker longlist came, I remember thinking, “Okay, at least someone’s going to read this book.” Then it got shortlisted, and I was thrilled that I would get to go to London, maybe get reviewed, maybe sell a few copies.

When they finally read my name out, it was sheer terror — cameras everywhere, the queen giving the prize, and suddenly I was doing interviews till two in the morning

It’s been life-changing, of course. When I wrote my first two books, I often felt maybe no one would read them. I guess most writers feel that way. Now I know I have an audience. And if the next book turns out bad, that’s the end. The pressure is always there. I am very grateful. I have been very lucky.

In The Seven Moons, you revisit the Sri Lankan civil war through a supernatural lens. What made you choose that approach to explore trauma and memory?

I think my inspiration came from the war itself. Everyone had their own version of why it happened, whose fault it was, and why it lasted so long. I thought, instead of arguing about it, let the dead speak, let the victims of the war have their say. That’s why I chose the ghost story format.

I didn’t set out to write about the war. I like horror films, and I wanted to write a story about a ghost solving his own murder in seven days. But once I began writing, the themes revealed themselves, it was set in 1989, so the war naturally came in. You are never fully in control — you start with one idea, and the story takes you somewhere else.

Do you prefer fiction over non-fiction, when it comes to reading too?

Fiction, for sure. Getting lost in a good story that someone has imagined and being able to travel. That’s the ultimate kind of travel for me. Through fiction, you can read someone who lived and died long before you were born, or go to the other side of the planet, even to other worlds. That’s the joy of reading, that complete escape. That’s also what I try to create when I write.

You once mentioned that Sri Lankans have a certain gallows humour. How do you balance that humour with the gravity of your subjects when you write?

I don’t consciously plan it. I don’t sit and think, “Oh, this part is too heavy, let me throw in a joke.” I think it’s just how we are, maybe it’s a Sri Lankan or South Asian thing… that we deal with tragedy by making jokes about it.

I grew up around people who talk that way, uncles who tell long, funny, winding stories about grim topics. It’s also a kind of survival mechanism for both the writer and the reader when the story deals with pretty gruesome subjects. But, when one is writing about torture chambers or war zones, the jokes have to stop.