{"id":2489,"date":"2014-09-17T13:35:49","date_gmt":"2014-09-17T13:35:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/torontowots.wordpress.com\/?p=2489"},"modified":"2015-09-08T14:07:48","modified_gmt":"2015-09-08T14:07:48","slug":"toronto-book-awards-the-hungry-ghosts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thewordonthestreet.ca\/toronto\/toronto-book-awards-the-hungry-ghosts\/","title":{"rendered":"Toronto Book Awards: The Hungry Ghosts"},"content":{"rendered":"

Our series of\u00a0Toronto Book Awards<\/a>\u00a0reviews concludes today. Kim MacMullen has\u00a0reviewed each of the finalists for this year\u2019s Toronto Book Awards, which will be awarded on October 16, 2014.<\/p>\n

Today Kim reviews The Hungry Ghosts\u00a0<\/em>by Shyam Selvadurai\u00a0(Doubleday Canada). Shyam\u00a0will be reading at the The Word On The Street on September 21st, at 12:00 PM and again at 4:30 PM at the Toronto Book Awards Tent.<\/p>\n

\n

Set against the backdrop of the Sri Lankan civil war, Shyam Selvadurai\u2019s The Hungry Ghosts<\/em> tells the story of Shivan Rassiah, the son of a Tamil father and Sinhalese mother, and his family\u2019s struggles with the war and each other. After his father\u2019s death, Shivan and his family have no choice but to move in with his wealthy, shrewd, and unforgiving grandmother, who had disowned Shivan\u2019s mother years ago for various perceived betrayals. Shivan quickly becomes his Aachi\u2019s favoured grandchild, and he grows up under her strict moral tutelage, knowing that his devotion is the only thing keeping his mother and sister under Aachi\u2019s roof\u2014a heavy burden for a six-year-old boy. As Shivan grows into an astute, emotional young man and begins to recognize his homosexuality, he realizes that his family must leave Sri Lanka if he is to live an open life and if they are to escape the violence in their country and Aachi\u2019s domineering grasp, especially now that Shivan is being groomed to inherit and operate her many rental properties. He convinces his mother and sister to leave Sri Lanka for Canada, where they purchase a house (albeit, with Aachi\u2019s money) and begin their new life in Scarborough, alight with hope and excitement at the prospect of total freedom.\"Book<\/a><\/p>\n

Their new life proves to be a difficult one, though, filled with racism, loneliness, isolation, betrayals, and regrets, leaving all three of them feeling stuck between a country to which they can\u2019t return and another that feels as though it will never be home. Shivan faces racism when trying to navigate Toronto\u2019s gay community, along with heartbreaking loneliness when he fails to make friends at university, and eventually he returns to Sri Lanka to visit his Aachi after she falls ill. This trip triggers a horrifying series of events that wounds Shivan to his core, destroying his relationship with his grandmother and creating even more discord in his family. The family\u2019s love is palpable and referenced often through the story, but their incendiary reactions and overwhelming desire to punish others for their perceived slights, including Aachi\u2019s deplorable actions upon learning of Shivan\u2019s homosexuality, impede any real intimacy and drives them apart. Selvadurai\u2019s beautiful, textured writing navigates the difficult and often violent subject matter of the book deftly and honestly, and by the end the reader cares for Shivan and his family (even Aachi) while simultaneously despairing at some of their poorer choices and more rash outbursts.<\/p>\n

One by one, beginning with Shivan\u2019s mother, they eventually begin to put aside their anger and open the door to forgiveness, offering a redemptive ending wrapped in simultaneous heartbreak. Aachi is the final holdout, and we are left guessing as to whether she can accept Shivan\u2019s personal sacrifice and release her per\u00e9thayas<\/em>, the titular hungry ghosts that can only be freed by the kind deeds of their ancestors, before her next life begins\u2014hopefully with no insatiable spectres to haunt her new days.<\/p>\n

Kim MacMullen<\/strong> is a copywriter from Barrie, ON. She has a degree in English Literature from Laurentian University, and, after spending two years in Toronto, she now lives in Barrie with her husband and their substantial collections of books, sports memorabilia, and video games.<\/p>\n

\n

\"CONTEST<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What was the title of Shyam Selvadurai’s first novel?\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>Check out our\u00a0festival program<\/a>, and send the answer to toronto@thewordonthestreet.ca to be entered in a draw to win a prize pack of all the shortlisted Toronto Book Awards<\/a> books,signed by the authors!<\/em><\/p>\n

Contest closes September 19, 2014.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Our series of\u00a0Toronto Book Awards\u00a0reviews concludes today. Kim MacMullen has\u00a0reviewed each of the finalists for this year\u2019s Toronto Book Awards, which will be awarded on October 16, 2014. Today Kim reviews The Hungry Ghosts\u00a0by Shyam Selvadurai\u00a0(Doubleday Canada). Shyam\u00a0will be reading at the The Word On The Street on September 21st, at 12:00 PM and again […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":2819,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[124],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewordonthestreet.ca\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2489"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewordonthestreet.ca\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewordonthestreet.ca\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewordonthestreet.ca\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewordonthestreet.ca\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2489"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/thewordonthestreet.ca\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2489\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3531,"href":"https:\/\/thewordonthestreet.ca\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2489\/revisions\/3531"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewordonthestreet.ca\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewordonthestreet.ca\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewordonthestreet.ca\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewordonthestreet.ca\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}