For our first reading of the new year, we are proud to feature Shyam Selvadurai.
Please join us on 15 January at 8pm in Siegfried Hall.
Please join us on 15 January at 8pm in Siegfried Hall.
Shyam Selvadurai was born in Colombo, Sri Lanka, in 1965. He came to Canada with his family at the age of nineteen. He has studied creative writing and theatre and has a BFA from York University, as well as an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia..
Funny Boy (1994), his first novel, won the WH Smith/Books in Canada First Novel Award and in the US the Lambda Literary Award. It was also named a Notable Book by the American Library Association, and was translated into 8 languages. His second novel, Cinnamon Gardens, was shortlisted for Canada’s Trillium Award, as well as the Aloa Literary Award in Denmark and the Premio Internazionale Riccardo Bacchelli in Italy. His novel for young adults, Swimming in the Monsoon Sea, was shortlisted for the Governor General’s Award and is the winner of the Lambda Literary Award in the US, the Canadian Library Association Book of the Year Award and Silver Winner in the Young Adult Category of ForeWord Magazine’s Book of the Year Award. Shyam is also the editor of an anthology, Story-Wallah: A Celebration of South Asian Fiction, published in Canada and the US. His fourth novel, The Hungry Ghosts (2013) was shortlisted for Canada’s prestigious Governor General’s Award for Fiction and longlisted for the DSC South Asia Literature Prize. His latest work is a comprehensive anthology of Sri Lankan literature, Many Roads Through Paradise.
