Funny Boy — Shyam Selvadurai

Now a major motion picture. An evocative coming-of-age novel about growing up gay in Sri Lanka during the turbulent and deadly Tamil-Sinhalese conflict.

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 battling 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.

“Adult intolerance of difference and the process of coming out as a gay teenager are given fresh perspective and rare insight.” -- San Francisco Chronicle

“A great deal more than a gay coming-of-age novel . . . Selvadurai writes as sensitively about the emotional intensity of adolescence as he does about the wonder of childhood.” -- The New York Times Book Review

“There's not a shred of false optimism in this delicately balanced coming-of-age novel by Selvadurai, a remarkably talented young writer.” -- Entertainment Weekly

“Compassionate and mature . . . blessed with both a deftness of touch and a seriousness of purpose. An auspicious debut.” -- Montreal Gazette