Funny Boy
SynopsisPlot
In the world of his large family – affluent Tamils living in Colombo, Sri Lanka – Arjie is an oddity, a 'funny boy' who prefers dressing as a girl to playing cricket with his brother.But as Arjie comes to terms with his own homo-sexuality and with the racism of the society in which he lives, Sri Lanka is plunged into civil war as fighting between the army and the Tamil Tigers gradually begins to encroach on the family's comfortable life.Sporadic acts of violence flare into full-scale riots and lead, ultimately, to tragedy.
Story
About this book
Funny Boy follows Arjie Chelvaratnam, the second son of a well-off Tamil family in Colombo, Sri Lanka. As a young child, Arjie gravitates toward staging elaborate make-believe weddings with his female cousins rather than joining the boys for cricket. His family sees this as a problem, and his parents push him toward conventional behavior. Over the course of several linked episodes, Arjie moves from the sheltered world of childhood games into a sharper awareness of desire, identity, and belonging.
The novel is set during the years leading up to the 1983 anti-Tamil riots, sometimes called Black July. While Arjie is quietly working out his own sexuality, the ethnic tensions between the Sinhalese majority and the Tamil minority are intensifying around his family. The two pressures run in parallel: Arjie must navigate a society that punishes difference on both personal and political levels. Sporadic violence gradually reaches the family's own neighborhood, and their privileged position offers less and less protection.
Shyam Selvadurai, who grew up in Colombo before moving to Canada, published Funny Boy in 1994. The story is told entirely through Arjie's perspective, with each chapter structured as a distinct episode covering a different period of his childhood and adolescence.
