Age Group:
Adult

Genre:
Canadian Literature, Coming-of-Age, Realistic Fiction, History, Asian

Awards:
Scotiabank Giller Prize Nominee (1994), Lambda Literary Foundation Award, Amazon.ca/Books in Canada First Novel Award (1994)

Summary:
Arjie Chelvaratnam is a young Tamil boy growing up during a time of political unrest in Sri Lanka. Arjie’s always been a little different from the other boys in his family. He loves playing a game called bride-bride with his girl cousins and shys away from playing cricket with the aggressive boys. Arjie senses that he is different when he is punished for dressing up as a bride. And later, when he is transferred to a strict school with his brother Diggy because he acts “funny.” Innocent Arjie comes closer to understanding the truth about himself when he meets Shehan, a boy who dares to be different.

My Thoughts:
I was inspired to read Funny Boy after listening to a reading by Selvadurai at an LGBT symposium. Hearing excerpts from his novels, I was hooked and wanted to find out more. Selvadurai possessess such an effortless talent for describing people and making his protoganists jump off the page. Reading about Arjie’s experiences in Sri Lanka was a welcome change from the predominately American books I have been reading recently. I highly recommend it!

Borrow Funny Boy from your local Vaughan library today!