ARAVIND ADIGA WINS MAn BOOKER PRIIZE FOR BOOK The white Tiger
Aravind Adiga has won this year’s Man Booker Prize with his debut novel The White Tiger. The award, which honors the best fiction written in English by an author from the UK, Ireland or the Commonwealth
The 33-year-old Indian-born writer was also the youngest author on the shortlist for the £50,000 prize.Congrats are in order to the young author, a resident of Mumbai and who had a stint in the S as well.
Poverty i guess still sells, as ‘The White Tiger’, a tale of two India’s, tells the story of Balram, the son of a rickshaw puller in the heartlands, one of the “faceless” poor left behind by the country’s recent economic boom.
“I like books that have ideas in them and that move and entertain.and the book charts his journey from working in a teashop to entrepreneurial success. It’s a quest to break out of the circumstances you find yourself in – it’s a quest for freedom,” said Adiga, adding it was a kind of book he would like to read.He said the book was set in today’s India and “revolves around the great divide between those Indians who have made it and those who have not. At the heart of the book it is something existential. It’s a quest to break out of the circumstances you find yourself in – it’s a quest for freedom.”
In the words of Head judge Michael Portillo “In many ways it was the perfect book.”of the Man Booker prize, “My criteria were ‘Does it knock my socks off?’ and this one did … the others impressed me … this one knocked my socks off.” Mr Portillo said what set the book apart was its originality in showing “the dark side of India”.
Adiga is only the fourth person to win with their first book, after Arundhati Roy, Keri Hulme and DBC Pierre. At 33, he’s one of the youngest winners in the 40 years of the contest..
Adiga beat favorite Sebastian Barry, Amitav Ghosh, Steve Toltz, Linda Grant and Philip Hensher. According to industry experts, the win means he can expect an upturn in sales and added recognition. According to BBAC/Amazon.co.uk, the six books enjoyed average sales rises of 700% following the announcement of the shortlist last month.
Adiga dedicated the award to “the people of New Delhi” and said “Making it to the shortlist on a first novel is sort of like winning and anything beyond that is quite a bonus,” Adiga said. Adiga is a former correspondent for Time magazine and has written for the Independent, and the Sunday Times.\
