Shyam Selvadurai is a Sri Lankan-Canadian novelist best known for his critically acclaimed debut novel, "Funny Boy," which won the Books in Canada First Novel Award in 1994. His subsequent works, including "Cinnamon Gardens" and the young adult novel "Swimming in the Monsoon Sea," have further established his reputation as a compelling storyteller. "Swimming in the Monsoon Sea" earned him the Lambda Literary Award in the Children's and Youth Literature category in 2006. Selvadurai also edited the anthology "Story-Wallah: Short Fiction from South Asian Writers," featuring contributions from prominent authors such as Salman Rushdie and Hanif Kureishi.
Born in Colombo, Sri Lanka, to a Sinhalese mother and a Tamil father, Selvadurai's work often explores themes of ethnic conflict, identity, and displacement - reflections of his own experiences during the 1983 ethnic riots that forced his family to emigrate to Canada. He later pursued a Bachelor of Fine Arts in creative and professional writing at York University. His personal essay "Coming Out," published in Time Asia, further highlights his engagement with themes of belonging and self-discovery. Selvadurai currently resides in Toronto with his partner, Andrew Champion.