Aravind Adiga (born 23 October 1974) is an Indian writer and journalist. His

debut novel A debut novel is the first novel a novelist publishes. Debut novels are often the author's first opportunity to make an impact on the publishing industry, and thus the success or failure of a debut novel can affect the ability of the author to p ...

, '' The White Tiger'', won the 2008 Man Booker Prize.

Biography

Early life and education

Aravind Adiga was born in Madras (now

Chennai Chennai (, ), formerly known as Madras ( the official name until 1996), is the capital city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost Indian state. The largest city of the state in area and population, Chennai is located on the Coromandel Coast of th ...

) on 23 October 1974 to Dr. K. Madhava Adiga and Usha Adiga from

Mangalore Mangalore (), officially known as Mangaluru, is a major port city of the Indian state of Karnataka. It is located between the Arabian Sea and the Western Ghats about west of Bangalore, the state capital, 20 km north of Karnataka–Ke ...

. His paternal grandfather was K. Suryanarayana Adiga, former chairman of Karnataka Bank, and maternal great-grandfather,

U. Rama Rao Udipi Rama Rau or U. Rama Rau (17 September 1874 - 12 May 1952) was an Indian politician from the Madras Presidency. He belonged to the Indian National Congress. He was a medical doctor by profession and was the founder of a medical journal calle ...

, was a popular medical practitioner and

Congress A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different countries, constituent states, organizations, trade unions, political parties, or other groups. The term originated in Late Middle English to denote an encounter (meeting of ...

politician from Madras. Adiga grew up in Mangalore and studied at Canara High School and later at St. Aloysius College, Mangaluru, where he completed his

SSLC The Secondary School Leaving Certificate (commonly referred to as SSLC) is a certification obtained by a student on successful completion of an examination at the end of study at the secondary schooling level in India. The SSLC is obtained o ...

in 1990. After emigrating to Sydney with his family, Aravind studied at

James Ruse Agricultural High School , motto_translation = Deeds not words , established = , type = Government-funded co-educational academically selective and specialist secondary day school , educational_authority = NSW Departm ...

. He later studied English literature at

Columbia College of Columbia University Columbia College is the oldest undergraduate college of Columbia University, situated on the university's main campus in Morningside Heights in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded by the Church of England in 1754 as King's ...

, in New York City, under

Simon Schama Sir Simon Michael Schama (; born 13 February 1945) is an English historian specialising in art history, Dutch history, Jewish history, and French history. He is a University Professor of History and Art History at Columbia University. He fi ...

, and graduated as

salutatorian Salutatorian is an academic title given in the United States, Armenia, and the Philippines to the second-highest-ranked graduate of the entire graduating class of a specific discipline. Only the valedictorian is ranked higher. This honor is tradi ...

in 1997. He also studied at Magdalen College, Oxford, where one of his tutors was

Hermione Lee Dame Hermione Lee, (born 29 February 1948) is a British biographer, literary critic and academic. She is a former President of Wolfson College, Oxford, and a former Goldsmiths' Professor of English Literature in the University of Oxford and Pr ...

Career

Aravind Adiga began his career as a financial journalist, interning at the ''

Financial Times The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and published digitally that focuses on business and economic current affairs. Based in London, England, the paper is owned by a Japanese holding company, Ni ...

''. With pieces published in the ''Financial Times'' and ''

Money Money is any item or verifiable record that is generally accepted as payment for goods and services and repayment of debts, such as taxes, in a particular country or socio-economic context. The primary functions which distinguish money are as ...

'', he covered the stock market and investment. As a Times correspondent he interviewed US President

Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021. Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of P ...

. His review of previous Booker Prize winner Peter Carey's 1988 book, ''

Oscar and Lucinda ''Oscar and Lucinda'' is a novel by Australian author Peter Carey which won the 1988 Booker Prize and the 1989 Miles Franklin Award. It was shortlisted for The Best of the Booker. Plot introduction It tells the story of Oscar Hopkins, th ...

'', appeared in ''The Second Circle'', an online literary review. Adiga was subsequently hired by ''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, ...

'', where he remained a South Asia correspondent for three years before going freelance. He wrote ''The White Tiger'' during this period. He now lives in

Mumbai Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — List of renamed Indian cities and states#Maharashtra, the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' fin ...

, Maharashtra, India.

Booker Prize

Adiga's debut novel, '' The White Tiger'', won the 2008 Booker Prize and has been adapted into a Netflix original movie '' The White Tiger''. He is the fourth Indian-born author to win the prize, after

Salman Rushdie Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie (; born 19 June 1947) is an Indian-born British-American novelist. His work often combines magic realism with historical fiction and primarily deals with connections, disruptions, and migrations between Eastern and We ...

Arundhati Roy Suzanna Arundhati Roy (born 24 November 1961) is an Indian author best known for her novel ''The God of Small Things'' (1997), which won the Booker Prize for Fiction in 1997 and became the best-selling book by a non-expatriate Indian author. S ...

, and

Kiran Desai Kiran Desai (born 3 September 1971) is an Indian author. Her novel ''The Inheritance of Loss'' won the 2006 Man Booker Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Fiction Award. In January 2015, The Economic Times listed her as one of 20 "mo ...

V. S. Naipaul Sir Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul (; 17 August 1932 – 11 August 2018) was a Trinidadian-born British writer of works of fiction and nonfiction in English. He is known for his comic early novels set in Trinidad, his bleaker novels of alienati ...

, another winner, is ethnically Indian but was born on the Caribbean island of

Trinidad Trinidad is the larger and more populous of the two major islands of Trinidad and Tobago. The island lies off the northeastern coast of Venezuela and sits on the continental shelf of South America. It is often referred to as the southernmos ...

. (More recently,

Geetanjali Shree Geetanjali Shree ( hi, गीतांजलि श्री; born 12 June 1957), also known as Geetanjali Pandey, is an Indian Hindi-language novelist and short-story writer based in New Delhi, India. She is the author of several short stories ...

won the prize for her novel Tomb of Sand ). The novel studies the contrast between India's rise as a modern global economy and the lead character, Balram, who comes from crushing rural poverty. Adiga explained that just as the "criticism by writers like

Flaubert Gustave Flaubert ( , , ; 12 December 1821 – 8 May 1880) was a French novelist. Highly influential, he has been considered the leading exponent of literary realism in his country. According to the literary theorist Kornelije Kvas, "in Flauber ...

, Balzac and

Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian er ...

of the 19th century helped England and France become better societies, "his writing aimed at try ngto highlight the brutal injustices of society". Shortly after he won the prize, it was alleged that Adiga had, the previous year, sacked the agent who secured his contract with

Atlantic Books Atlantic Books is an independent British publishing house, with its headquarters in Ormond House in Bloomsbury, in the London Borough of Camden. It is perhaps best known for publishing Aravind Adiga's debut novel '' The White Tiger'', which r ...

at the 2007

London Book Fair The London Book Fair (LBF) is a large book-publishing trade fair held annually, usually in April, in London, England. LBF is a global marketplace for rights negotiation and the sale and distribution of content across print, audio, TV, film and di ...

. In April 2009, it was announced that the novel would be adapted into a feature film. Propelled mainly by the Booker Prize win, ''The White Tiger''s Indian hardcover edition sold more than 200,000 copies.

Academic criticism

The novel is described as a first-person ''

Bildungsroman In literary criticism, a ''Bildungsroman'' (, plural ''Bildungsromane'', ) is a literary genre that focuses on the psychological and moral growth of the protagonist from childhood to adulthood (coming of age), in which character change is import ...

'' and placed within the wider context of contemporary Indian writing in English, as a novel about "the Darkness" (which reminds us of

's London) and a fascinating success story about the overnight rise of one character from rags to riches, but also about India’s development as a global market economy. Mendes (2010) notices in this a certain artificiality, cleverly masked by irony, and remarks the cardboard cut-out' title character equipped with an inauthentic voice that ultimately undermines issues of class politics" (p. 277). Pakistani blogger Sarmad Iqbal reviewed Adiga's ''The White Tiger'' for ''International Policy Digest'', saying: "This novel in multiple ways was an eye opener for me about the rising India as being a Pakistani I grew up listening to and learning nothing good about India. As I got acquainted with all the dark secrets of a rising India divulged by Adiga in this novel, I came across several astonishing similarities between what goes in the 'enemy state' I knew from my childhood and my own country Pakistan."

Other works

Adiga's second book, '' Between the Assassinations'', was released in India in November 2008 and in the US and UK in mid-2009. His third book, '' Last Man in Tower'', was published in the UK in 2011. His next novel, ''

Selection Day ''Selection Day'' is a 2016 sports fiction novel written by Booker Prize winner Aravind Adiga. It was shortlisted along with four other writers for the 2017 DSC Prize for South Asian Literature. It tells the story of Mohan Kumar, a chutney seller ...

'', was published on 8 September 2016. ''Amnesty'' published in 2020 speaks of the pathetic condition of immigrants. It was shortlisted for the 2021 Miles Franklin Award.

Bibliography

Novels

* '' The White Tiger: A Novel''. Atlantic Books, Ltd (UK), Free Press (US), 2008 * '' Between the Assassinations''. Picador (IND), 2008 * '' Last Man in Tower''. Fourth Estate (IND), 2011 * ''

''. HarperCollins India (IND), 2016 * ''

Amnesty Amnesty (from the Ancient Greek ἀμνηστία, ''amnestia'', "forgetfulness, passing over") is defined as "A pardon extended by the government to a group or class of people, usually for a political offense; the act of a sovereign power offici ...

''. Picador, Pan Macmillan, 2020

Short stories

* "The Sultan's Battery" (''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'', 18 October 2008
online text
* "Smack" (''

The Sunday Times ''The Sunday Times'' is a British newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News UK, w ...

'', 16 November 2008
online text
* "Last Christmas in Bandra" (''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' (f ...

'', 19 December 2008
online text
* "The Elephant" (''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...

'', 26 January 2009
online text

References

External links

Official website

''Time'' magazine – Search Results for Aravind Adiga

Articles by Aravind Adiga
for ''The Second Circle, A Review of Contemporary Literature''
"Aravind Adiga in Conversation with Hirsh Sawhney"
''

The Brooklyn Rail ''The Brooklyn Rail'' is a publication and platform for the arts, culture, humanities, and politics. The ''Rail'' is based out of Brooklyn, New York. It features in-depth critical essays, fiction, poetry, as well as interviews with artists, criti ...

'' (September 2008)
"Review of The White Tiger"
''The Telegraph''

''The New York Times'', 14 October 2008
Article by Aravind Adiga
in ''

'' * {{DEFAULTSORT:Adiga, Aravind 1974 births Alumni of Magdalen College, Oxford Indian emigrants to Australia Booker Prize winners Columbia College (New York) alumni Journalists from Karnataka Indian male novelists Kannada-language writers Living people Mangaloreans Writers from Mangalore English-language writers from India 21st-century Indian novelists People educated at James Ruse Agricultural High School Novelists from Karnataka 21st-century Indian male writers Kannada people