Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Arvind Adiga grabs the Booker

Arvind Adiga has done it. He has won this year's Man Booker Prize for his novel, The White Tiger.

Adiga has got this honour with his first book--that's amazing. I had no doubt about his talent ever since I had read some of his book reviews in the Time magazine. Perhaps at that time not many had noticed him but I had been impressed.

Here is the Guardian on his win:

After an "emotionally draining" and closely fought final judging session, Aravind Adiga, one of the two debut novelists on the Man Booker shortlist, was last night awarded the £50,000 prize for The White Tiger, a bracingly modern novel about the dark side of the new India.

Adiga, 33, is a surprise winner: at long odds he batted aside the claims of veteran writers on the shortlist such as Sebastian Barry and Amitav Ghosh.

He is only the fourth first-time novelist to win the Man Booker - after Keri Hulme in 1985, Arundhati Roy in 1997 and DBC Pierre in 2003 - and he is the second youngest after Ben Okri, who won in 1991 aged 32.

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2 comments:

the player said...

its feels great that anotehr indian has won the Booker PRize.wat abutu dream i nk how are u doing on it???

Unknown said...

Yes, it does feel great. India has always been a land of fascinating stories--but I guess after the success stories, it is the dark side of India that is attracting attenion. Look at how Jala's film won the best documentary film prize at the Montreal film festival. Danny Boyle making the film, Slum Dog Millionaire. I am not saying this to take away credit from them. So, expect more negative stories from India. In the process, whatever happened to the Naipaulian advice: stop bringing the news! Dickens used to do that when journalism was yet to uncover the dark side of industrialization. And imagine, Adiga's novel has actually been called Dickensian!

Indian writers, who are getting picked up by good publishers, in general are doing well.