UPDATE, Oct 14, 2008: Adiga wins the Man Booker Prize. See SAJAforum coverage.
[Listen to an hour-long SAJA interview with Aravind Adiga on June 26, 2008. See archive of SAJA webcasts.]
It's not often that a new fictional character is compared to some of the best-known fictional characters of all time, but that's what's happened to Aravind Adiga's creation, Balram Halwai. Here's what the New York Sun had to say, invoking "Lolita" and "The Sopranos":
Like Humbert Humbert – or Tony Soprano, for that matter – Balram proves to be a seriously charming sociopath.”
That's just one of the many positive reviews of Adiga's debut novel, "The White Tiger." Adiga is a former Time magazine correspondent based in NYC; now he's a freelancer based in Mumbai. From the press materials below:
Introducing a major literary talent, The White Tiger offers a story of coruscating wit, blistering suspense, and questionable morality, told by the most volatile, captivating, and utterly inimitable narrator that this millennium has yet seen.
Balram Halwai is a complicated man. Servant. Philosopher. Entrepreneur. Murderer. Over the course of seven nights, by the scattered light of a preposterous chandelier, Balram tells us the terrible and transfixing story of how he came to be a success in life -- having nothing but his own wits to help him along.
For review copies or interview requests, please contact Jill.Siegel[at]simonandschuster.com. Tell her SAJA sent you - please note, she will only be able to respond to journalists.
Press materials, including a link to an excerpt, below. Post your comments below. [You might also like to read a piece a first-person essay by Adiga about going home to the town of Mangalore; his Time archive is here.]
The White Tiger
By Aravind Adiga
Free Press, April 2008
Hardcover, 288 pages
ISBN-10: 1-4165-6259-1
Read an excerpt
Introducing a major literary talent, The White Tiger offers a story of coruscating wit, blistering suspense, and questionable morality, told by the most volatile, captivating, and utterly inimitable narrator that this millennium has yet seen.
Balram Halwai is a complicated man. Servant. Philosopher. Entrepreneur. Murderer. Over the course of seven nights, by the scattered light of a preposterous chandelier, Balram tells us the terrible and transfixing story of how he came to be a success in life -- having nothing but his own wits to help him along.
Born in the dark heart of India, Balram gets a break when he is hired as a driver for his village's wealthiest man, two house Pomeranians (Puddles and Cuddles), and the rich man's (very unlucky) son. From behind the wheel of their Honda City car, Balram's new world is a revelation. While his peers flip through the pages of Murder Weekly ("Love -- Rape -- Revenge!"), barter for girls, drink liquor (Thunderbolt), and perpetuate the Great Rooster Coop of Indian society, Balram watches his employers bribe foreign ministers for tax breaks, barter for girls, drink liquor (single-malt whiskey), and play their own role in the Rooster Coop. Balram learns how to siphon gas, deal with corrupt mechanics, and refill and resell Johnnie Walker Black Label bottles (all but one). He also finds a way out of the Coop that no one else inside it can perceive.
Balram's eyes penetrate India as few outsiders can: the cockroaches and the call centers; the prostitutes and the worshippers; the ancient and Internet cultures; the water buffalo and, trapped in so many kinds of cages that escape is (almost) impossible, the white tiger. And with a charisma as undeniable as it is unexpected, Balram teaches us that religion doesn't create virtue, and money doesn't solve every problem -- but decency can still be found in a corrupt world, and you can get what you want out of life if you eavesdrop on the right conversations.
Sold in sixteen countries around the world, The White Tiger recalls The Death of Vishnu and Bangkok 8 in ambition, scope, and narrative genius, with a mischief and personality all its own. Amoral, irreverent, deeply endearing, and utterly contemporary, this novel is an international publishing sensation -- and a startling, provocative debut.
About the author
Aravind Adiga was born in India in 1974 and raised partly in Australia. He attended Columbia and Oxford universities. A former correspondent for Time magazine, he has also been published in the Financial Times. He lives in Mumbai, India.
Praise for "The White Tiger"
“The White Tiger is one of the most powerful books I’ve read in decades. No hyperbole. This debut novel…hit me like a kick to the head — the same effect Richard Wright’s Native Son and Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man had…. This is an amazing and angry novel about injustice and power.
—USA Today
“BUY IT”
—New York Magazine
“In this darkly comic debut novel…. Balram’s appealingly sardonic voice and acute observations of the social order are both winning and unsettling.”
—The New Yorker
“[An] extraordinary and brilliant first novel…. Adiga is a real writer – that is to say, someone who forges an original voice and vision.
—The Sunday Times of London
“The White Tiger is a satire as sharp as it gets.”
—Seattle Times
“Hysterical, darkly comic…a wicked relief from the overly nostalgic Indian novels.”
—The Star-Ledger
“WHAT YOU’LL LOVE: The author renounces the same old yogier-than-thou, Bollywood vision of India in favor of a story in which the filthy, unjust and depraved underbelly of his country is revealed. GRADE: A-.”
—Washington Post
“A riveting existential crime story and an exposé of social injustice.”
—Time Out New York
“‘The White Tiger’ echoes masterpieces of resistance and oppression (both ‘The Jungle’ and ‘Native Son’ come to mind). But Adiga depicts the modern Indian dilemma as unique…. ‘The White Tiger’ contains passages of startling beauty…Adiga never lets the precision of his language overshadow the realities at hand: No matter how potent his language one never loses sight of the men and women fighting impossible odds to survive.”
—San Francisco Chronicle
“Aravind Adiga’s auspicious debut novel is at once a fascinating glimpse beneath the surface of an Indian economic ‘miracle,’ a heart-stopping psychological tale of a premeditated murder and its aftermath, and a meticulously conceived allegory of the creative destruction that’s driving globalization...Unpretentious and compulsively readable to boot…. Like Humbert Humbert – or Tony Soprano, for that matter – Balram proves to be a seriously charming sociopath.”
—New York Sun
“The perfect antidote to lyrical India.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Wonderfully tense…fascinating and believable… Recommended for all libraries.”
—Library Journal (starred review)
Vivid and disturbing…riveting…. Balram’s voice is seductive and his observations are acute, laced both with a sardonic wit and a trace of sadness.... His depiction of life in what he calls the ‘Rooster Coop’…is at times shocking in its brutality and frankness.
This intense, unsettling novel will open the eyes of many Western readers.”
—Bookpage
