Funny Boy: A Novel - Hardcover

Selvadurai, Shyam

4.04

7,848 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0688145957 ISBN 13: 9780688145958

Publisher: William Morrow & Co, 1996

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Coming of age as the son of a middle-class Sri Lankan family, Arjie finds his childhood games giving way to a realization that he is gay, in a gentle and humorous story set against a backdrop of growing racial tension and civil unrest.

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Review:

"A marvelous first novel about growing up gay in Sri Lanka...from a brilliant...writer whose next book cannot arrive here quickly enough."--Kirkus Reviews

"[A] poignant coming-of-age novel.... With deft humor and a keen eye, Selvadurai...captures his protagonist's difficult passage into his own identity-of which his homosexuality is just one component. And it is with deep, wistful feeling that he ties that story to larger themes of family and country."--Publishers Weekly

"Through the details of family life, the intimacies and exchanges, Selvadurai, much like E. M. Forster, reveals truths subtly, with poignancy and grace."--Booklist

"Selvadurai writes as sensitively about the emotional intensity of adolescence as he does about the wonder of childhood."--New York Times Book Review

A marvelous first novel about growing up gay in Sri Lanka from a brilliant writer whose next book cannot arrive here quickly enough. --Kirkus Reviews"

[A] poignant coming-of-age novel . With deft humor and a keen eye, Selvadurai captures his protagonist s difficult passage into his own identity-of which his homosexuality is just one component. And it is with deep, wistful feeling that he ties that story to larger themes of family and country. --Publishers Weekly"

Through the details of family life, the intimacies and exchanges, Selvadurai, much like E. M. Forster, reveals truths subtly, with poignancy and grace. --Booklist"

Selvadurai writes as sensitively about the emotional intensity of adolescence as he does about the wonder of childhood. --New York Times Book Review"

From the Back Cover:

Arjie is "funny."

The second son of a privileged family in Sri Lanka, he prefers staging make-believe wedding pageants with his female cousins to batting balls with the other boys. When his parents discover his innocent pastime, Arjie is forced to abandon his idyllic childhood games and adopt the rigid rules of an adult world. Bewildered by his incipient sexual awakening, mortified by the bloody Tamil-Sinhalese conflicts that threaten to tear apart his homeland, Arjie painfully grows toward manhood and an understanding of his own "different" identity.

Refreshing, raw, and poignant, Funny Boy is an exquisitely written, compassionate tale of a boy's coming-of-age that quietly confounds expectations of love, family, and country as it delivers the powerful message of staying true to one's self no matter the obstacles.

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