The White Tiger von Adiga, Aravind

WINNER OF THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2008
WINNER OF THE GALAXY BRITISH BOOK AWARDS 'AUTHOR OF THE YEAR' 2009

Meet Balram Halwai, the 'White Tiger': servant, philosopher, entrepreneur, murderer. Balram was born in a backwater village on the River Ganges, the son of a rickshaw-puller. He works in a teashop, crushing coal and wiping tables, but nurses a dream of escape. When he learns that a rich village landlord needs a chauffeur, he takes his opportunity, and is soon on his way to Delhi at the wheel of a Honda. Amid today's India's cockroaches and call-centres, its 36,000,004 gods, slums, shopping malls, and crippling traffic jams, Balram learns of a new morality at the heart of a new India. Driven by desire to better himself, he comes to see how the Tiger might escape his cage ... through murder.

'[An] extraordinary and brilliant first novel... Adiga is a real writer - that is to say, someone who forges an original voice and vision.' Sunday Times