As the novel opens in the present day, Shivan, now living in Canada, is preparing to travel back to Colombo, Sri Lanka, to rescue his elderly and ailing grandmother, to remove her from the home-now fallen into disrepair-that is her pride, and bring her to Toronto to live our her final days. The novel centres around Shivan Rassiah, the beloved grandson, who is of mixed Tamil and Sinhalese lineage, and who also-to his grandmother’s dismay-grows from beautiful boy to striking gay man. In Shyam Selvadurai’s sweeping new novel, his first in more than a decade, he creates an unforgettable ghost, a powerful Sri Lankan matriarch whose wily ways, insatiable longing for land, houses, money and control, and tragic blindness to the human needs of those around her parallels the volatile political situation of her war-torn country. It is the duty of the living relatives to free those doomed to this fate by doing kind deeds and creating good karma. In Buddhist myth, the dead may be reborn as “hungry ghosts”-spirits with stomach so large they can never be full-if they have desired too much during their lives. Weaving in Buddhist philosophy, autobiography and politics ( The Sunday Times, Sri Lanka).Shyam’s guest interview at University of Manitoba radio ().Toronto a forbidding presence in immigrant tale ( Toronto Star).Paradise lost: The pull of Shyam Selvadurai’s birthplace shows strongly in his life and writing ( Ottawa Citizen).
Where have you been, Shyam Selvadurai? ( Xtra! magazine).Failed desires conjure Shyam Selvadurai’s The Hungry Ghosts ().When one plus one equals one ( IN Toronto magazine).Shyam Selvadurai reaps what he sows ( Montreal Gazette).Shyam Selvadurai: Both here and there ( National Post).The knotty problem of Scarborough ( The Globe and Mail).
0 kommentar(er)
