The Booker Prize Rewards 'Diversity' Over Difference

The Booker Prize, one of literature’s most prestigious, chooses “the best” novel written in English and published in Britain or Ireland in a given year. The 2022 selection was The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida, by Shehan Karunatilaka, published by the small press Sort of Books. The award’s early news coverage noted that last year’s shortlist also included a book by a Sri Lankan—thus the implication: It is time for a Sri Lankan to win—we all need to learn more about Sri Lanka now.