Drawing: Shehan Karunatilaka, Booker Prize Winner 2022

Posted on December 12, 2022 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Autographed drawing of Sri Lankan author Shehan Karunatilaka

Sri Lankan writer Shehan Karunatilaka’s second novel, THE SEVEN MOONS OF MAALI ALMEIDA was announced the winner of the 2022 Booker Prize – the most prestigious literary prize in the English-speaking world – at The Roundhouse in London on 17 October this year. Set against the backdrop of civil war, it follows the story of renegade war photographer Maali Almeida, tasked with solving his own murder.

The first draft was shortlisted for the Gratiaen Prize under the title, DEVIL DANCE. It was subsequently published as CHATS WITH THE DEAD before being revised to “make it familiar to Western readers” during the two-year delay due to the Covid-19 pandemic and released by the independent British publishing house Sort of Books this year under THE SEVEN MOONS title.The Booker judges said that the novel “fizzes with energy, imagery and ideas against a broad, surreal view of the Sri Lankan civil wars. Slyly, angrily comic.” On his website Shehan is described as “writing about forgotten cricketers, drunk old men, war photographers, chatty ghosts, self-driving cars and time travelers. His stories are absurd and mostly true. He lives in Colombo with his wife, two kids, five guitars and thirty-two unfinished stories.”

Shehan grew up in the Sri Lankan capital and was educated in New Zealand, graduating from Massey University with a degree in English Literature against his family’s wish to study business administration.

His debut novel in 2010, CHINAMAN: THE LEGEND OF PRADEEP MATHEW won the Commonwealth Book Prize, the Gratiaen Prize and the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature. It was also adjudged the second greatest cricket book of all time by Wisden in 2019. telling the story of an alcoholic sports journalist’s quest to track down a missing Sri Lankan cricketer of the 1980’s. Shehan’s first manuscript THE PAINTER was shortlisted for the 2000 Gratiaen Prize, but was never published. He has also published three children’s books with more in the pipeline and another novel “that will hopefully not take ten years to finish.”

He has said that his influences are Kurt Vonnegut, William Goldman, Salman Rushdie, Michael Ondaatje, Agatha Christie, Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, Tom Robbins and “a few hundred other authors.”

Shehan also plays bass for the rock bands ‘Independent Square’, ‘Powercut Circus’ and ‘Brass Monkey Band’ and has written and spoken about his lifelong obsession with ‘The Police’.

Three days after Shehan won the Booker he appeared at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London’s Southbank Centre in AN EVENING WITH THE 2022 BOOKER PRIZE WINNER event as part of the London Literature Festival. When I met him at the aftermatch booksigning he immediately recognised my Kiwi accent so we immediately found a point of reference as fellow alumni of Massey University in Palmerston North on New Zealand’s North Island, and the city’s best student takeaway. NZ Stuff described him as a ‘Sri Lankan-Kiwi’ after his win and said that he is in the process of moving back to Aotearoa, something he mentioned to me. He then signed a copy of his book and my sketch.

Drawing: Ian McEwan

Posted on October 8, 2018 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Autographed drawing of writer Ian McEwan

“I like stories and I am always looking for the one which I imagine to be irresistible,” wrote British novelist and screenwriter Ian McEwan, considered one of the most powerful people in UK culture and listed by The Times in the 50 greatest British writers since 1945.

Winner of numerous accolades, including six nominations for the Man Booker Prize, Ian won the prestigious award in 1998 for his novel AMSTERDAM. The acclaimed screen adaption of his romantic war drama ATONEMENT collected Oscars, BAFTAs and a Golden Globe.

I had hoped to catch Ian in person at the premiere of his latest film adaption THE CHILDREN’S ACT at the Curzon Mayfair, but missed him, so sent this sketch to his agent and it came back signed and dedicated.

Drawing: Dame Hilary Mantel

Posted on July 13, 2018 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Autographed drawing of author Hilary Mantel

The final signed sketch in this week’s writers series is Dame Hilary Mantel, who I was lucky to meet after her second appearance at the Man Booker 50 Series, the weekend long festival dedicated to the 50th anniversary of the Man Booker Prize at various venues in London’s Southbank Centre. Dame Hilary has won the Booker twice-the first British author and only woman to win it more than once.

In 2009 WOLF HALL, the fictional account of Thomas Cromwell’s rapid rise to power the court of Henry VIII collected the award and three years later the sequel to the dark Tudor tale, BRING UP THE BODIES repeated the win.

The third instalment in the Cromwell trilogy, THE MIRROR AND THE LIGHT is in progress. Described by the judges as an “extraordinary piece of storytelling”, this very modern novel, which happens to be set in the 16th Century, the 650 page WOLF HALL was also one of the five shortlisted books for the special one-off Golden Man Booker anniversary prize, to select the best work of fiction over the five decades of Britain’s most prestigious literary accolade.

I managed to catch Dame Hilary as she left the Purcell Room on Saturday afternoon , where she signed this quick portrait sketch for me.

Drawing: Eleanor Catton

Posted on July 11, 2018 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Autographed drawing of author Eleanor Catton

It’s always nice to catch up with a fellow kiwi in London, and in this case a very distinguished New Zealander, Man Booker Prize winner Eleanor Catton. Born in Canada, while her father completed his doctorate at the University of Western Ontario, she grew up in Christchurch on east coast of NZ’s South Island. Eleanor’s second novel, THE LUMINARIES won the Man Booker Prize in 2013.

At the age of 28, she was the youngest recipient of the prestigious literary award. It was also the longest book to win, with 832 pages. The chair of the judging panel, Robert Macfarlane said, “It’s a dazzling work. It’s a luminous work. It is vast without being sprawling.”

Set in 1866, THE LUMINARIES follows Walter Moody, a prospector who heads to Hokitika on the opposite coast to Christchurch to make his fortune in the goldfields, but stumbles on a meeting of twelve local men and is drawn into a complex mystery that is covering up a series of unsolved crimes. Each of the twelve men are associated with the twelve signs of the zodiac, astrological principles, the sun and the moon – ‘the luminaries’ in the title. Each of the novel’s twelve parts decreases in length to mimic the waning of the moon. As Eleanor herself said, “It’s a kind of weird sci-fi fantasy thing.”

Eleanor was in London over the weekend speaking at the ‘Series Man Booker 50′ as part of the 50th anniversary celebrations of the Prize. I met her at the Queen Elizabeth Hall Artists’ Entrance on Saturday, where we ‘conversed in kiwi’ as she signed my sketch.

Drawing: Sir Kazuo Ishiguro

Posted on July 10, 2018 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Autographed drawing of author Sir Kazuo Ishiguro

Japanese-born British author and Nobel laureate Kazuo Ishiguro moved to the UK with his family in 1960, when he was five years old. Since then he has become one of the most celebrated contemporary fiction writers in the English-speaking world.

Among his many accolades are four Booker Prize nominations, winning in 1989 with THE REMAINS OF THE DAY, written in first person, recounting the butler Stevens’ professional and personal relationship with a former colleague, the housekeeper Miss Kenton. The 1993 film version starring Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson was nominated for eight Academy Awards. His 2005 novel NEVER LET ME GO was also shortlisted for the Booker, with TIME magazine citing it as the Best Novel of the Year and was also adapted into a successful film in 2010.

Last year the Swedish Academy awarded him the Nobel Prize in Literature, with the citation, as a writer “who, in novels of great emotional force has uncovered the abyss beneath our illusory sense of connection with the world.” This year he was knighted in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list.

Sir Kazuo signed my sketch at the Artists Entrance to the Royal Festival Hall on Sunday as he arrived to take part in the ‘Series Man Booker 50’, celebrating half a century of the prestigious literary prize.

Drawing: Michael Ondaatje

Posted on July 9, 2018 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Autographed drawing of author Michael Ondaatje

Sri-Lanka-born Canadian author Michael Ondaatje’s 1992 Booker Prize winning novel THE ENGLISH PATIENT was awarded the special, one-off Golden Man Booker award last night, to mark the 50th Anniversary of the prestigious literary accolade. All 52 previous winners were eligible, with the judges shortlisting five – one for each decade – IN A FREE STATE (1971) by V.S.Naipaul, MOON TIGER (1987) by Penelope Lively, THE ENGLISH PATIENT, WOLF HALL (2009) by Hilary Mantel and LINCOLN IN THE BARDO (2017) by George Sanders. The prize has been shared on two occasions, one being in 1992 when THE ENGLISH PATIENT and Barry Unsworth’s SACRED HUNGER were chosen as joint winners. The final Golden Prize was selected by public poll.

THE ENGLISH PATIENT centres around the eponymous ‘English patient’, Count Laszlo de Almasy, burned and disfigured in a plane crash during the North Africa Campaign of WWII, who tells his story in flashbacks, involving a romantic affair, while being attended by Hana, a young Canadian nurse. He is believed to be English, but main his identity is revealed, little by little culminating in the great irony of the novel, he’s not English, but Hungarian… an “international bastard” who has spent most of his adult life wandering the desert. The 1996 film adaption featuring Ralph Fiennes as Almasy won nine Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director for the late Anthony Minghella.

Michael signed my sketch at the Royal Festival Hall when he arrived yesterday afternoon as part of the ‘Man Booker 50’ series of lectures, workshops and discussions over the weekend, prior to the announcement of the Golden Man Booker Prize last night.