Aravind Adiga biography

Author Biography  | Interview  | Books by this Author  | Read-Alikes

Aravind Adiga

Aravind Adiga

How to pronounce Aravind Adiga: arh-vindh adi-ja

Aravind Adiga Biography

Aravind Adiga is the author of The White Tiger, which was awarded the 2008 Man Booker Prize, Last Man in Tower, and a collection of stories, Between the Assassinations. He was born in India and attended Columbia and Oxford universities. He is a former correspondent for Time magazine whose work has also appeared in the New Yorker, Granta, the Sunday Times (London), and the Financial Times, among other publications. He lives in India.

Aravind Adiga's website

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Interview

Aravind Adiga talks about his powerful debut novel, The White Tiger, and discusses how his fictional account ties strongly to the reality of contemporary India.

Who are some of your literary influences? Do you identify yourself particularly as an Indian writer?
It might make more sense to speak of influences on this book, rather than on me. The influences on The White Tiger are three black American writers of the post-World War II era (in order), Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, and Richard Wright. The odd thing is that I haven't read any of them for years and years -- I read Ellison's Invisible Man in 1995 or 1996, and have never returned to it -- but now that the book is done, I can see how deeply it's indebted to them. As a writer, I don't feel tied to any one identity; I'm happy to draw influences from wherever they come.

Could you describe your process as a writer? Was the transition from journalism to fiction difficult?
A first draft of The White Tiger was written in 2005, and then put aside. I had given up on the book. Then, for reasons I don't fully understand myself, in December 2006, when I'd just returned to India after a long time abroad, I opened the draft and began rewriting it entirely. I wrote all day long for the next month, and by early January 2007, I could see that I had a novel on my hands.

From where did the inspiration for Balram Halwai come? How did you...

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Books by this Author

Books by Aravind Adiga at BookBrowse
Amnesty jacket Selection Day jacket Last Man in Tower jacket Between the Assassinations jacket
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Read-Alikes

All the books below are recommended as read-alikes for Aravind Adiga but some maybe more relevant to you than others depending on which books by the author you have read and enjoyed. So look for the suggested read-alikes by title linked on the right.
How we choose read-alikes

  • Deepa Anappara

    Deepa Anappara

    Deepa Anappara grew up in Kerala, southern India, and worked as a journalist in cities including Mumbai and Delhi. Her reports on the impact of poverty and religious violence on the education of children won a Developing Asia... (more)

    If you enjoyed:
    The White Tiger

    Try:
    Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line
    by Deepa Anappara

  • John Burdett

    John Burdett

    John Burdett is a nonpracticing lawyer who worked in Hong Kong for a British firm until he found his true vocation as a writer. Since then, he has lived in France and Spain, and Thailand and is now back in Hong Kong. His ... (more)

    If you enjoyed:
    The White Tiger

    Try:
    Bangkok Tattoo
    by John Burdett

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