Abstract: Sri Lankan author Shehan Karunatilaka’s 2022 novel, The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida, shortlisted for the Booker Prize, balances fiction and nonfiction through magic realism. His novel sees its eponymous protagonist turning up in the afterlife, and being informed of the seven-moon period before his soul is lost forever. Thus, he must use this time to tie up the loose ends of his life, find his killer(s), and in the course of such actions, help change the tide of the war that has gripped his country. The narration foregoes the conventional format of storytelling, shifting perspective from the second to the third person narration and toggling between the present and the past. Apart from being deeply entrenched in Lankan culture, politics, and history, the narrative witnesses a constant pull towards the act of remembering. The novel is also concerned with how the phenomenon of recalling is an act of reclamation, a way of making voices heard, contributing to our shared as well as individual history. This makes forgetting a sort of surrendering which legitimizes the actions of institutions, while turning the act of retention into something rebellious, one that refuses to let bygones be bygones. When we remember, we speak out; when we speak out, we rebel. Using Hirsche’s idea of postmemory and Hartman’s concept of critical fabulation, this paper will examine how Karunatilaka positions memory and remembering as instruments of resistance, invoking the suppressed histories of violence that nations often choose to forget.

Keywords: Death, Magic Realism, Memory, Resistance, Civil War.