Born in Colombo, Sri Lanka, he migrated to Toronto with his family in 1983, following violent anti-Tamil riots. He studied creative writing and magazine writing and got a BFA from York University. He has written for television, and his fiction and essays have appeared in journals and anthologies.

Salvadurai acquired almost istant recognition with his first novel, Funny Boy, that was published in 1994, and won the W.H. Smith/Books in Canada First Novel Award and, in the U.S., The Lambda Literary Award for Best Gay Men's Fiction. The novel has also been published in the U.K., and in numerous countries in Europe.

Savadurai's second novel is Cinnamon Gardens. To help prepare fot this second novel he again lived in Sri Lanka with his partner Andrew (to wom the book is dedicated), experiencing first hand the discomforts and risks associated with being a non conformist in a country with persistently traditional and conformist norms about sexuality.

He is virtually alone as an openly gay cultural figure in Sri Lnka, but he sees his first novel as having helped put the issue of homosexuality on the table. He now lives in Toronto.