Writer Shehan Karunatilaka: On Finding Your Literary Voice | Louisiana Channel

The award-winning Novelist Shehan Karunatilaka talks about growing up in a conflicted and violent Sri Lanka, about finding his literary voice and making sense of the past through fiction.

Karunatilaka grew up in Sri Lanka, during the civil war that lasted from 1983 to 2009 and killed at least 100.000 people. Karunatilaka explains how he experienced the war “Whatever is said about Sri Lanka, there is plenty of material for novelists who are writing dystopian novels … growing up in Colombo it was a city of checkpoints, assassinations, bomb blasts, curfews … going to school you would see bodies lying on the side of the street, bodies burning on tires these are my memories of your mom telling me “don’t look to that side!” and you’d ask curiously “who was that person why were they killed?” And there wasn’t always an answer, because it could have been anyone.”

He goes on to explain how he found his literary voice: “With Carl Muller, suddenly I thought, I may not be able to wright as elegantly as Ondaatje, but I can certainly write like a drunken uncle”

And how fiction writers can narrate global conflicts and fill out the gaps that exist in our history: “We can go back to the past, and we don’t necessarily have to pick a side, but we can present the different narratives of the past.”

Shehan Karunatilaka (b. 1975) grew up in Colombo, studied in New Zealand, and later lived and worked in London. Now, he is back in Colombo, writing critically acclaimed novels and children’s books. His first novel Chinaman: The Legend of Pradeep Mathew, won the Commonwealth Book Prize in 2012, the Gratiaen Prize, as well as the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature.
His second novel, The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida, followed the success of his first and won the 2022 Booker Prize.

Shehan Karunatilaka was interviewed by Astrid Agnes Hald at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Denmark, in September 2024. In the video Shehan Karunatilaka is reading an excerpt from his novel The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida.

Camera: Jarl Therkelsen Kaldan
Produced and edited by Astrid Agnes Hald
Copyright: Louisiana Channel, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, 2024

Louisiana Channel is supported by Den A.P. Møllerske Støttefond, Ny Carlsbergfondet, C.L. Davids Fond og Samling and Fritz Hansen



Subscribe to our channel for more videos on literature:    / thelouisianachannel  

FOLLOW US HERE:
Website: http://channel.louisiana.dk
Instagram:   / louisianachannel  
Facebook:   / louisianachannel