Shehan Karunatilaka releases new novel

‘Chats with the Dead’ is the latest novel by Shehan Karunatilaka, who won the Gratiaen Prize in 2008 for his previous novel ‘Chinaman - the Legend of Pradeep Matthew’. The book also won the Commonwealth Book Prize and the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature, and was shortlisted for the Shakti Bhatt First Book Prize. Read below for an overview of the latest release from Penguin Books:

Who is Malinda Albert Kabalana? How did he die?
Renegade war photographer Maali Almeida has to solve his own murder. Does that sound fun? It would be if there wasn't so much bloody red-tape to get through. Oh and it's not as though anyone alive actually seems to miss him, and it certainly doesn't help that his girlfriend is related to his boyfriend. Worst of all, it's all those goddamn memories of war, constantly interrupted by the overly chatty dead folks breezing through the afterlife. Besides, he's so busy solving his ethical dilemmas that there's barely any time to solve a murder-even if it's his own.
A compulsively readable dark comedy of life-death and everything in between-Chats with the Dead searingly exposes the plight of a country caught in the aftermath of civil war. Its deliciously compelling absurdity holds you in thrall right from the very first page up to its startling denouement, constantly upending its own premise with its staggering humanity.
Shehan Karunatilaka has delivered a classic whodunit with a brilliant twist.

Photo and cover design by Eranga Tennekoon | Cover illustrations by Lalith Karunatilaka

‘Chats with the Dead’ is available for preorder on Amazon and will be in stores in Sri Lanka soon.

UPDATE 13/2/2020: The book is now available in leading Sri Lankan book stores.