Shyam Selvadurai

Funny Boy, to be a comment on the human rights violations and political turmoil that have long plagued his native Sri Lanka. But as he was writing he realized that he couldn't tell Arjie's story “without the political context, given that the communal situation was so complex and so volatile.” Since Funny Boy was published to wide acclaim in 1994, Selvadurai has published two more novels (one for young adults) all of which are set in Sri Lanka, at various points during the 19th and 20th century. Although Selvadurai is compelled to return again and again to Sri Lanka in his writing, he is careful to point out the divide between the stories he writes and his own life.

Selvadurai immigrated to Canada with his parents when he was 19, following the race riots in Colombo, Sri Lanka, in 1983. Selvadurai has stated that the reasons behind the ethnic violence in Sri Lanka are difficult to understand, and is not interested in using his novels as a vehicle for his own analysis of the situation. Rather, as the son of a Tamil father and Sinhalese mother, and as a gay Sri Lankan/Canadian, Selvadurai is interested in detailing how the violence and hatred infiltrates the everyday in his characters' lives. In 1997, Selvadurai and his partner relocated to Sri Lanka for a year – a country where homosexuality is a crime – while Selvadurai worked on his second novel. “I think Cinnamon Gardens is about personal courage and liberation,” Selvadurai explains. “But I couldn’t really understand that courage until I was in Sri Lanka with my partner, trying to live as a gay couple in a society like that.”

Shyam Selvadurai is an alumnus of York University, having earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1989. He has taught at York in the Humanities Program, written both fiction and non-fiction for television and various magazines, and is the editor of Story Wallah! A Celebration of South Asian Fiction.

Bilbiography
Swimming in the Monsoon Sea (2005)
Story Wallah! A Celebration of South Asian Fiction (Ed. - 2004)
Cinnamon Gardens (1999)
Funny Boy (1994)

Awards
Canadian Library Association Young Adult Canadian Book Award (2006) - for Swimming in the Monsoon Sea
Nominated: Governor General's Literary Award, Children's Literature (2005) - for Swimming in the Monsoon Sea
Lambda Literary Award – Children's/Young Adult (2005) - for Swimming in the Monsoon Sea; Gay Men's Fiction (1996) - for Funny Boy
ForeWord Magazine's Book of the Year, Silver Award, Young Adult (2005) - for Swimming in the Monsoon Sea
National Magazine Awards, Gold Prize, Fiction (2006) - for "The Demoness Kali"
Shortlisted: Trillium Book Award (1998) - for Cinnamon Gardens
American Library Association Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Book Award, Literature (1997) - for Funny Boy
American Library Association RUSA Notable Book (1997) - for Funny Boy
SmithBooks/Books in Canada First Novel Award (1994) - for Funny Boy
Shortlisted: Giller Prize (1994) - for Funny Boy