Author: Shyam Selvadurai
Publisher: Penguin
Year: 1994
Language: English
Pages: 316
ISBN/UPC (if available): 0140250042
Description
A glittering and wise novel. Funny Boy keeps repeating with quiet conviction that the human condition can, in spite of everything, be joyful. 'You are not alone, it says to the reader. I understand you. I too was there. I remember.'
Arjie is a funny boy who prefers dressing as a girl to playing cricket with his older brother. In Funny boy we follow the life of the family through Arjie's eyes as he struggles to come to terms both with his own homosexuality and with the racism of the society in which he lives.
In the north of Sri Lanka there's a war going on between the army and the Tamil Tigers, and gradually it begins to encroach on the family's comfortable life. Sporadic acts of violence flare into full-scale riots and lead, ultimately, to tragedy.
Written in clear, simple prose, and masterly in its mingling of the personal and the political, Funny Boy marks the arrival of an exceptional new novelist, a writer with a profound understanding of the human heart.