Queen consort present as Sri Lankan wins Booker Prize

Writer Shehan Karunatilaka won the prestigious Booker Prize for fiction on Monday for “The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida. Karunatilaka, one of Sri Lanka’s leading authors, won the 50,000 pound ($57,000) award for his second novel.

The 47-year-old, who has also written journalism, children’s books, screenplays and rock songs, is the second Sri Lanka-born Booker Prize winner, after Michael Ondaatje, who took the trophy in 1992 for “The English Patient.

” Karunatilaka received the award from Britain's queen consort, during a ceremony at London’s Roundhouse concert hall. The event was the first fully in-person Booker ceremony since the pre-pandemic event in 2019 and the first for longtime literacy champion Camilla since her husband became King Charles III.