Shyam Selvadurai (Author of Funny Boy)

Shyam Selvadurai鈥檚 Followers (414)

Shyam Selvadurai

Born

in Colombo, Sri Lanka

March 12, 1965

Genre

Gay & Lesbian, Politics, Literature & Fiction

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Shyam Selvadurai is a Sri Lankan-Canadian novelist who wrote Funny Boy (1994), which won the Books in Canada First Novel Award, and Cinnamon Gardens (1998). He currently lives in Toronto with his partner Andrew Champion.

Selvadurai was born in Colombo, Sri Lanka to a Sinhalese mother and a Tamil father--members of conflicting ethnic groups whose troubles form a major theme in his work. Ethnic riots in 1983 drove the family to emigrate to Canada when Selvadurai was nineteen. He studied creative and professional writing as part of a Bachelor of Fine Arts program at York University.

Selvadurai recounted an account of the discomfort he and his partner experienced during a period spent in Sri Lanka in 1997 in his essay "Coming Out" in Time Asia's ...more

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Shyam Selvadurai鈥檚 books

Average rating: 3.98 · 13,634 ratings · 1,394 reviews · 12 distinct works 鈥� Similar authors

	Funny Boy 4.05 avg rating — 8,579 ratings — published 1994	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Cinnamon Gardens by Shyam Selvadurai, Andr茅 Bernard (Editor) 3.89 avg rating — 2,086 ratings — published 1998 — 36 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Swimming in the Monsoon Sea 3.75 avg rating — 1,220 ratings — published 2005 — 11 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Hungry Ghosts 3.83 avg rating — 1,039 ratings — published 2012 — 16 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Mansions of the Moon 3.86 avg rating — 366 ratings — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Story-Wallah: Short Fiction from South Asian Writers by Shyam Selvadurai (Editor, Author), Sam Selvon, Mena Abdullah 3.90 avg rating — 331 ratings — published 2004 — 7 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Many Roads through Paradise: An Anthology of Sri Lankan Literature 4.37 avg rating — 43 ratings — published 2014 — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Write to Reconcile: An Anthology 4.30 avg rating — 10 ratings — published 2013	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Write To Reconcile III 4.33 avg rating — 3 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Write to Reconcile II 4.50 avg rating — 2 ratings — published 2015	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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Quotes by Shyam Selvadurai (?)

“She is just a woman who life has made different. This is her strange way of trying to love you.”
― Shyam Selvadurai, The Hungry Ghosts

8 likes

“It doesn鈥檛 matter,鈥� she said. 鈥淟ife is full of stupid things and sometimes we just have to do them.”
― Shyam Selvadurai, Funny Boy: A Novel

6 likes

“I was able to leave the constraints of myself and ascend into another, more brilliant, more beautiful self, a self to whom this day was dedicated, and around whom the world, represented by my cousins putting flowers in my hair, draping the palu, seemed to revolve. It was a self magnified, like the goddesses of the Sinhalese and Tamil cinema, larger than life; and like them, like the Malini Fonsekas and the Geetha Kumarasinghes, I was an icon, a graceful, benevolent, perfect being upon whom the adoring eyes of the world rested.”
― Shyam Selvadurai, Funny Boy

3 likes

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Shyam Selvadurai鈥檚 Followers (414)

Shyam Selvadurai

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Shyam Selvadurai鈥檚 books