Aravind Adiga

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Aravind Adiga was born and raised in south India. He traveled for school, attending Columbia University in New York and Magdalen College in Oxford. His first novel was The White Tiger which was published in 2008. His subsequent novels include The Last Man in Tower (2011), Selection Day (2016), and Amnesty (2020). (1)

The White Tiger, which won the Booker Prize in 2008, is about an individual named Wen Jiabao, an individual from China, who goes to India to study their economic success. He gets a job as a chauffer in New Deli, ends up allegedly murdering his boss, flees to Bangalore, and finds his own taxi company. Wen is then forced to confess to the hit and run accident committed by his boss's wife which killed the boss. (3)

“The White Tiger” is a penetrating piece of social commentary, attuned to the inequalities that persist despite India’s new prosperity. It correctly identifies — and deflates — middle-class India’s collective euphoria. (5)


The White Tiger focuses on economic issues in India which Adiga naturally witnessed in his childhood. The novel serves to show economic discrepancies in India.  

This intense, unsettling novel will open the eyes of many Western readers. (3)

Many of the concerns Adiga comments on in The White Tiger is something people do not experience in the West. His experience in both the West and the East allows him to write a novel that shows the stark difference of life in India to his western readers. 

I find it interesting how Adiga took it upon himself to become a journalist to travel around the world and learn about different experiences. He seemed to use his knowledge of both Western and Eastern cultures to write a book targeted to Western readers that shows the struggles in Eastern countries. 


Works Cited

(1) Aravind Adiga, http://www.aravindadiga.com/bio/index.html

(2) “An Interview with Aravind Adiga, Shortlisted Author for the Booker Prize 2008 | The Booker Prize.” YouTube, uploaded by The Booker Prize, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4tAPvWVorY

(3) Freedenberg, Harvey. “The White Tiger.” BookPage, May 2008, https://www.bookpage.com/reviews/5713-aravind-adiga-white-tiger-book-review/

(4) “Justice, Subalternism, and Literary Justice: Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger.” The Journal of Commonwealth Literature, vol. 55, no. 2, 2020, pp. 228-245, https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0021989418777853

(5) Kapur, Akash. “The Secret of His Success.” The New York Yimes, 7 Nov. 2008, https://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/09/books/review/Kapur-t.html


Comments

  1. Sean DunneFebruary 19, 2024 at 7:13 AM

    Hi Jessica! Thanks for sharing your blog about Aravind Adiga. I am not familiar with his work, so I'm glad to have learned more about him and his writing. 'The White Tiger' sounds like such an interesting read, and I am particularly interested in the way that the main character seems to interact with a few different cultures along his journey. This raises opportunities for Western readers to further understand the vast diversities that exist in the East, which is important given Western habits to clump Eastern cultures together. Thanks for sharing!

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  2. BriannaFebruary 19, 2024 at 4:05 PM

    As I am unfamiliar with this author, I found this blog to be interesting and informative. Knowing that his novel contains some situations that he himself experienced, such as economic issues, makes the content within the novel all the more impactful. By opening the eyes of readers that lived different lives than he, I'm sure that Adiga's novel is a worthwhile and enlightening read, especially for someone like myself who is uneducated in the topics that he mentions.

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