Page 116 - DENG503_INDIAN_WRITINGS_IN_LITERATURE

Indian Writings in Literature Gowher Ahmad Naik, Lovely Professional University

Notes
Unit 14: Aravind Adiga: the White Tiger—An Introduction

CONTENTS
Objectives

Introduction
14.1 Introduction to the White Tiger
14.2 Summary
14.3 Key-Words

14.4 Review Questions
14.5 Further Readings

Objectives

After reading this Unit students will be able to:
• Discuss life and works of Aravind Adiga.

• Introduce the White Tiger.
Introduction

Aravind Adiga is an Indian writer and journalist. His debut novel, The White Tiger, won the 2008
Man Booker Prize. Aravind Adiga was born in Madras (now Chennai) on 23 October 1974 to Dr.
K. Madhava Adiga and Usha Adiga, both of whom hailed from Mangalore. His paternal grandfather
was the late K. Suryanarayana Adiga, former chairman of Karnataka bank while his maternal
great-grandfather, U. Rama Rao, was a popular medical practitioner and Congress politician from
Madras. He grew up in Mangalore and studied at Canara High School, then at St. Aloysius High
School, where he completed his SSLC in 1990. He secured first rank in the state in SSLC. Incidentally
his elder brother Anand Adiga secured 2nd rank in SSLC and first rank in PUC in the state. After
emigrating to Sydney, Australia, with his family, he studied at James Ruse Agricultural High
School. He studied English literature at Columbia College, Columbia University in New York,
where he studied with Simon Schama and graduated as salutatorian in 1997. He also studied at
Magdalen College, Oxford, where one of his tutors was Hermione Lee.
Adiga began his journalistic career as a financial journalist, interning at the Financial Times. With
pieces published in the Financial Times and Money, he covered the stock market and investment,
interviewing, among others, Donald Trump. His review of previous Booker Prize winner Peter
Carey's book, Oscar and Lucinda, appeared in The Second Circle, an online literary review. He
was subsequently hired by TIME, where he remained a South Asia correspondent for three years
before going freelance. During his freelance period, he wrote The White Tiger. He currently lives
in Mumbai, India.

Aravind Adiga's debut novel, The White Tiger, won the 2008 Booker Prize. He is the fourth
Indian-born author to win the prize, after Salman Rushdie, Arundhati Roy and Kiran Desai. (V. S.
Naipaul, another winner, is of Indian origin, but was not born in India). The five other authors on

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