the hungry ghosts shyam selvadurai summary

He resides in Toronto and Sri Lanka and remains active in the pursuit of social justice.

His second novel Cinnamon Gardens is set in colonial Ceylon in the 1920s. Selvadurai worked as a scriptwriter for television before focusing on writing short stories, novels, and essays.

in theatre directing and playwriting from York University, and an MFA in creative writing from the University of British Columbia. Perhaps one of the most radical and important aspects of the book is the descriptions of brown bodies and skin – written by a brown author- especially in contrast to the whiteness of mainstream gay sex stories.Born in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Shyam Selvadurai moved to Toronto, Canada with his mixed Tamil/Sinhalese family following the race riots of 1983. You are basically fresh meat,” Selvadurai says. “It’s a rite of passage – the first gay experience is terrible. Shivan’s sexual experiences are all written with tenderness and nuance, even the negative early experiences. Also, he is differently gay because he is part of a modern-day gay ethos – he comes out, he’s in gay environments, he has a spouse.” I always start with the assumption that the protagonist is gay.” However, unlike Arjie, Shivan’s desires extend beyond childhood curiosity. Selvadurai explains that because he is gay, his rule is “if the character can be, then let them be gay. And then of course, there is absolute terror of the weather.”Īs Shivan wrestles with reconciling his past and trying to find forgiveness for his mother and grandmother, he and his family must also bear the harsh realities of immigrant life, the devastating discovery that a new home is not without its own challenges. So when you arrive, coming from a culture where there is a lot of street life and a lot of easy contact between human beings all the time, you feel parched, you feel thirsty. “I really felt it was important to write about the Canada I came to,” Selvadurai says, noting he had not yet explored this experience in his writing. The need to escape his grandmother propels Shivan and his family to move to Toronto.

The hungry ghosts shyam selvadurai summary