Queering Diasporic Identity: Space, Belonging, and Sexual Awakening in Shyam Selvadurai's Funny Boy

Authors

  • Dr. Kosala Gayathree Kumarage

Keywords:

Shyam Selvadurai, queer embodiment, Sri Lankan literature, spatial liminality, postcolonial identities, threshold spaces, decolonial desire

Abstract

This article interrogates the complex tessellation of space, belonging, and sexual identity in Shyam Selvadurai's groundbreaking novel Funny Boy (1994). Drawing upon—yet at times departing from—established queer and postcolonial theoretical frameworks, I examine how the protagonist Arjie navigates the treacherous terrain of gender nonconformity amid escalating ethnonationalist violence in pre-civil war Sri Lanka

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References

Ahmed, S. (2006). Queer phenomenology: Orientations, objects, others. Duke University Press.Bhabha, H. K. (1994). The location of

culture. Routledge.

Butler, J. (1990). Gender trouble: Feminism and the subversion of identity. Routledge.

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Published

2025-05-09

How to Cite

Dr. Kosala Gayathree Kumarage. (2025). Queering Diasporic Identity: Space, Belonging, and Sexual Awakening in Shyam Selvadurai’s Funny Boy. Pegem Journal of Education and Instruction, 15(4), 279–287. Retrieved from https://pegegog.net/index.php/pegegog/article/view/3982

Issue

Vol. 15 No. 4 (2025): CURRENT ISSUE

Section

Article

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