num_pages: 280
description: The setting is Sri Lanka, 1980, and it is the season of monsoons. Fourteen-year-old Amrith is caught up in the life of the cheerful, well-to-do household in which he is being raised by his vibrant Auntie Bundle and kindly Uncle Lucky. He tries not to think of his life “before,” when his doting mother was still alive. Amrith’s holiday plans seem unpromising: he wants to appear in his school’s production of Othello and he is learning to type at Uncle Lucky’s tropical fish business. Then, like an unexpected monsoon, his cousin arrives from Canada and Amrith’s ordered life is storm-tossed. He finds himself falling in love with the Canadian boy. Othello, with its powerful theme of disastrous jealousy, is the backdrop to the drama in which Amrith finds himself immersed.Shyam Selvadurai’s brilliant novels, Funny Boy and Cinnamon Gardens, have garnered him international acclaim. In this, his first young adult novel, he explores first love with clarity, humor, and compassion.
language: English
title: Swimming in the Monsoon Sea
titlecomplete: Swimming in the Monsoon Sea
genres: Coming Of Age, Canada, Realistic Fiction, Historical Fiction, LGBT, Queer, Gay, Young Adult, Fiction, Contemporary
ratings_count: 1107
places: Sri Lanka
awards: awardedAt: 1104566400000
name: Lambda Literary Award
category: Children’s/Young Adult, awardedAt: 1136102400000
name: Canadian Library Association Young Adult Book Award
publisher: Tundra Books