I read Shyam Selvadurai's Cinnamon Gardens at the end of 2003 and I enjoyed it very much. I was told that this, his first book, is even better so I was planning to read it too. When I showed up for a class last week, there it was on the readng list...

I enjoyed this book a lot and read it quite quickly. It's less a novel and more a collection of short stories all about the same characters. Arjie, the young Tamil narrator at the centre of the stories becomes more endearing as he gets older. The book ends in a diary-style account of the riots in Sri Lanka in the early 1980s. It's quite a moving ending actually. I think I preferred Selvadurai's Cinnamon Gardens to this book, but both are very well written and gave me an interesting vision of a country I know little about.

Released on Tuesday, May 11, 2004 at L'Amere a Boire in Montreal, Quebec Canada.

I'll take this to tonight's MeetUp at L'Amère à Boire, 2049 St-Denis, at 7pm.

Je vais l'apporter au Meet-up prévu ce soir à L'Amère à Boire, 2049 St-Denis, à 19 heures.

I had my eyes on this one after receiving the release note in my email... now officially on my TBR pile.

I've had that book for so long, I completely forgot about it, then found it, lying there, waiting to be read. I really liked it. I've never read anything else by this author, so I can't compare, but I really enjoyed this one. I didn't realize when I took it - so many years ago - that it was labelled as gay litterature, and while I can see why, I honestly believe that this book is more about Sri Lanka than anything else.

WILD RELEASE NOTES:

I'm in Montreal for the week, so I'll probably leave it somewhere, probably tomorrow, but I'm not sure exactly where and when.

OOps, forgot to register this one. Folia had this book and since I have never heard from this book nor this author... I thought that I could bring it home and give it a try!

Finally read it! It only took 5 years ;-) I enjoyed the story - a coming of age type of story but set in turbulent political times. Interesting approach to tackle various themes; love, the discovery of one's sexuality, the notion of national identity and the sneaky way it defines relationships and opportunities.