The Hungry Ghosts

Shivan Rassiah is in his early thirties, gay, and living in Toronto, far from the Sri Lanka where he was born. When word comes that his grandmother is dying, he prepares to fly back to her. He hopes the journey will give him a fresh start, something he badly needs, and a way out of the life he has made for himself.

The trip is weighed down by what he carries with him. Shivan remembers his difficult, tangled bond with his grandmother in his early years, and a later visit to her, after he had emigrated, that ended in tragedy. He also remembers the Buddhist stories she used to tell him. Their themes of destiny and karma insisted that no one can escape what they have done, and those tales now press on him as he considers his own past.

The narrative moves between Toronto and a Sri Lanka torn by war in the 1980s and 1990s. As memory and regret close in, Shivan begins to wonder whether the redemption he is chasing can be reached at all. The novel is intense and absorbing, and it deals with migration, sexuality, family and exile. Shyam Selvadurai draws on both the island of his birth and the country he adopted, and renders their smells, colours, landscapes, manners and customs in rich detail.