But as the narrative draws the reader further in, and darkens, it becomes clear that Adiga is playing a bigger game. At first, this novel seems like a straightforward pulled-up-by-your-bootstraps tale, albeit given a dazzling twist by the narrator's sharp and satirical eye for the realities of life for India's poor. This debut novel from an Indian journalist living in Mumbai hit me like a kick to the head - the same effect Richard Wright's Native Son and Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man had. The New YorkerĪravind Adiga's The White Tiger is one of the most powerful books I've read in decades. New York Magazineĭarkly comic.Balram's appealingly sardonic voice and acute observations of the social order are both winning and unsettling. This fast-moving novel, set in India, is being sold as a corrective to the glib, dreamy exoticism Western readers often get.If these are the hands that built India, their grandkids really are going to kick America's ass.BUY IT.
Gary Shteyngart, author of Absurdistan and The Russian Debutante's Handbook Adiga enters the literary scene resplendent in battle dress and ready to conquer. Mohsin Hamid, author of The Reluctant FundamentalistĪn exhilarating, side-splitting account of India today, as well as an eloquent howl at her many injustices. Amoral, irreverent, deeply endearing, and utterly contemporary, this novel is an international publishing sensation-and a startling, provocative debut.Ĭompelling, angry, and darkly humorous, The White Tiger is an unexpected journey into a new India. Recalling The Death of Vishnu and Bangkok 8 in ambition, scope, The White Tiger is narrative genius with a mischief and personality all its own. On the occasion of the president of China's impending trip to Bangalore, Balram writes a letter to him describing his transformation and his experience as driver and servant to a wealthy Indian family, which he thinks exemplifies the contradictions and complications of Indian society. The white tiger of this novel is Balram Halwai, a poor Indian villager whose great ambition leads him to the zenith of Indian business culture, the world of the Bangalore entrepreneur. "This is the authentic voice of the Third World, like you've never heard it before" (John Burdett, Bangkok 8).
The stunning Booker Prize-winning novel from the author of Amnesty and Selection Day that critics have likened to Richard Wright's Native Son, The White Tiger follows a darkly comic Bangalore driver through the poverty and corruption of modern India's caste society.
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