[7][8] Before publishing his debut novel in 2010, he worked in advertising at McCann, Iris and BBDO, and has also written features for The Guardian, Newsweek, Rolling Stone, GQ, National Geographic, Conde Nast, Wisden, The Cricketer and the Economic Times.

Described as "part-tragedy, part-comedy, part-mystery and part-drunken-memoir", Chinaman is set in Sri Lanka in 1999, fresh after a world cup victory and in the throes of a civil war that will continue for another decade.

The story's narrator is retired sports journalist WG Karunasena, who has done little with his 64 years, other than drink arrack and watch Sri Lankan cricket.

When informed by doctors of his liver problems, WG decides to track down the greatest thing he has ever seen, Pradeep Mathew, left-arm spinner for Sri Lanka during the late 1980s.

[20][21] Karunatilaka struggled to find an international publisher for the novel because most deemed Sri Lankan politics "esoteric and confusing" and many felt "the mythology and worldbuilding was impenetrable, and difficult for Western readers."

"[19] Published in August 2022 by Sort of Books, The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida won the 2022 Booker Prize, announced at a ceremony at The Roundhouse in London on 17 October 2022.

Embroiled in red tape, memories of war, his own ethical dilemmas, and his awkward relationship with his mother, his official girlfriend and his secret boyfriend Maali is constantly interrupted by the overly chatty dead folks breezing through the afterlife, as he struggles to unravel his own death.

The author set the book in 1989, as this was when "The Tigers, The Army, The Indian peacekeepers, The JVP terrorists and State death squads were all killing each other at a prolific rate."

A time of curfews, bombs, assassinations, abductions and mass graves seemed to the author to be "a perfect setting for a ghost story, a detective tale or a spy thriller.

"[29] In 2013, speaking to The Nation, Karunatilaka described his influences as: "Kurt Vonnegut, William Goldman, Salman Rushdie, Michael Ondaatje, Agatha Christie, Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, Tom Robbins and a few hundred others.