Shyam Selvadurai: Literature, Identity, Politics and the Galle Literary Festival

Shyam Selvadurai was born in 1965. His book humorous male child introduced cheery apologue to mainstream English literature in Sri Lanka, and indeed as Shyam notes, in South Asia. Born to a Sinhalese engender and Tamil father, Shyam was 19 when he left Sri Lanka in 1983 for Canada. Funny Boy was as much about class and ethnicity as sexual identities, and though Shyam has repeatedly noted that it was not autobiographical, the fabrication is set against a violent Sri Lanka. Shyam is presently the curator of the Galle literary Festival. In an essay (Coming Out) penned for Time in 2003, Shyam brought out the pestered relationship he has with Sri Lanka. On the one hand is the cope for the country, …live and let live generosity and good mentality that I love most about Sri Lanka and on the other, the unsettling disposition of it in this country that I still considered my home, I could never be at home. Yet all of Shyams fiction is set in Sri Lanka, the reason for which I claimed him in this interrogate. The interview starts, as with so many others he has done, with Funny Boy and in 2011, Shyams take on his writing centering back in the early 90?s. I investigate him whether he is frustrated by being pegged so much to Funny Boy, given that he has come out with two other books, and is working on the release of a triplet this year.

I asked him whether and how his exile from Sri Lanka helped in his fiction, and in his words, anchor his books to a voice that is deeply Sri Lankan. We explore the concept of home, and what it means to Shyam and as well how his fiction often deals with the minutiae of life amongst certain classes, including unseen except appreciated acts of courage and kindness amidst hate and harm. I ask him about the process of writing and of literary prizes, and we both link to the excellent essay Eyes on the Prize by Booker Prize winning Hillary Mantel, published in the spend 2010 edition of Intelligent Life. We end the interview on his curation of the Galle literary Festival and his take on it,... If you want to get a full essay, order it on our website: Ordercustompaper.com

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