ARAVIND ADIGA

Nestling on India's southern coast lies the town of Kittur. Ranging through the city's streets and schoolyards, bedrooms and businesses, its inner workings and its outer limits, through the myriad and distinctive voices of its inhabitants, Aravind Adiga brings an entire world vividly and unforgettably to life.

Ask any Bombaywallah about Vishram Society - Tower A of the Vishram Co-operative Housing Society - and you will be told that it is unimpeachably pucca. Despite its location close to the airport, under the flight path of 747s and bordered by slums, it has been pucca for some fifty years. But Bombay has changed in half a century - not least its name - and the world in which Tower A was first built is giving way to a new city; a Mumbai of development and new money; of wealthy Indians returning with fortunes made abroad.

"Seduto alla sua scrivania, l''imprenditore autodidatta Balram Halwai, detto la Tigre Bianca, scrive sette lucide e impietose lettere al primo ministro cinese che si appresta a visitare l''India. Gli racconta delle proprie origini e della propria storia: la storia di un ragazzo di una delle caste piu basse che da un fangoso villaggio all''interno del paese (dove ""ogni buona notizia si tramuta in una cattiva notizia, e in fretta"") arriva a New Delhi, dove mall luccicanti, sontuosi palazzi e auto tirate a lucido da magri autisti in ciabatte si accostano a bordelli di lusso con bionde prostitute dell''Europa dell''est. Qui, nel nuovissimo quartiere di Gurgaon, Balram Halwai assiste alla progressiva e inarrestabile corruzione del suo padrone, ne assimila la mentalita e intuisce che il modo per fuggire dalla gabbia della miseria esiste: commettere un omicidio, rubare e mettersi in proprio. Grazie a un duro lavoro, a pasti trangugiati in fretta, a un codice morale dettato dalle necessita produttive, ma soprattutto applicando le auree regole degli affari apprese da Mr Ashok, il suo defunto ex principale, il successo non tarda ad arrivare. Per il futuro si vedra: forse potrebbe investire parte del proprio capitale in una scuola per i bambini poveri di Bangalore: una scuola piena di Tigri Bianche, in cui non si parli ne di Gandhi, ne dei 36 milioni di divinita indiane. "

The magnificent new novel from the Booker Prize-winning author of The White Tiger: LONGLISTED FOR THE 2013 IMPAC AWARD.Ask any Bombaywallah about Vishram Society - Tower A of the Vishram Co-operative Housing Society - and you will be told that it is unimpeachably pucca. Despite its location close to the airport, under the flight path of 747s and bordered by slums, it has been pucca for some fifty years. But Bombay has changed in half a century - not least its name - and the world in which Tower A was first built is giving way to a new city; a Mumbai of development and new money; of wealthy Indians returning with fortunes made abroad.When real estate developer Dharmen Shah offers to buy out the residents of Vishram Society, planning to use the site to build a luxury apartment complex, his offer is more than generous. Initially, though, not everyone wants to leave; many of the residents have lived in Vishram for years, many of them are no longer young. But none can benefit from the offer unless all agree to sell. As tensions rise among the once civil neighbours, one by one those who oppose the offer give way to the majority, until only one man stands in Shahs way: Masterji, a retired schoolteacher, once the most respected man in the building. Shah is a dangerous man to refuse, but as the demolition deadline looms, Masterjis neighbours - friends who have become enemies, acquaintances turned co-conspirators - may stop at nothing to score their payday.A suspense-filled story of money and power, luxury and deprivation; a rich tapestry peopled by unforgettable characters, not least of which is Bombay itself, Last Man in Tower opens up the hearts and minds of the inhabitants of a great city - ordinary people pushed to their limits in a place that knows none.

Manjunath Kumar is fourteen. He knows he is good at cricket - if not as good as his elder brother Radha. He knows that he fears and resents his domineering and cricket-obsessed father, admires his brilliantly talented sibling and is fascinated by the world of CSI and by curious and interesting scientific facts. But there are many things, about himself and about the world, that he doesn''t know . . . Sometimes it seems as though everyone around him has a clear idea of who Manju should be, except Manju himself.When Manju begins to get to know Radha''s great rival, a boy as privileged and confident as Manju is not, everything in Manju''s world begins to change and he is faced with decisions that will challenge both his sense of self and of the world around him . . .

Every building tells a story, but in the jungles of Mumbai, one building - and one man- stand on the borderline between India''s past and its future. Ask any Bombaywallah about Vishram Society - Tower A of the Vishram Co-operative Housing Society - and you will be told that it has been pucca for some fifty years despite its location under the flight path and border of slums. But Bombay has changed in half a century - not least its name - and the world in which Tower A was first built is giving way to a new city; a Mumbai of development and new money; of wealthy Indians returning with fortunes made abroad. When real estate developer Dharmen Shah offers to buy out the residents of Vishram Society, planning to use the site to build a luxury apartment complex, his offer is more than generous. Initially not everyone wants to leave but none can benefit from the offer unless all agree to sell. As tensions rise among the once civil neighbours, one by one those who oppose the offer give way to the majority, until only one man stands in Shah''s way: Masterji, a retired schoolteacher, once the most respected man in the building. Shah is a dangerous man to refuse and as the demolition deadline looms, Masterji''s neighbours may stop at nothing to score their payday. A suspense-filled story of money and power, luxury and deprivation; a rich tapestry peopled by unforgettable characters, not least of which is Bombay itself, Last man in tower opens up the hearts and minds of the inhabitants of a great city - ordinary people pushed to their limits in a place that knows none.

Una comèdia negríssima situada a l'Índia actual. Narrada en primera persona, 'Tigre blanc' és la confessió epistolar d'un crim, el que ha comès Balram, un jove empresari i xofer de Bangalore que assassina el seu cap, empès per la força de l'emperador social que el domina. En una sèrie de cartes divertidíssimes dirigides al primer ministre xinès, anticipant la seva visita oficial al país, Balram li relata la història de la seva vida: de comun noi honest i treballador, però extremadament pobre, es converteix en un emprenedor sense escrúpols amb instints assassins.

The dazzling new book from the winner of the 2008 Man Booker Prize: one of the summer's most eagerly anticipated works of fiction. In "Between the Assassinations", Aravind Adiga brings to life a chorus of distinctive Indian voices, all inhabitants in the fictional town of Kittur...His new book sizzles with the same humor, anger, and humanity that characterized "The White Tiger". On India's south-western coast, between Goa and Calicut, lies Kittur - a small, nondescript every town. Aravind Adiga acts as our guide to the town, mapping overlapping lives of Kittur's residents. Here, an illiterate Muslim boy working at the train station finds himself tempted by an Islamic terrorist; a bookseller is arrested for selling a copy of "The Satanic Verses"; a rich, spoiled, half-caste student decides to explode a bomb in school; a sexologist has to find a cure for a young boy who may have AIDS. What emerges is the moral biography of an Indian town and a group portrait of ordinary Indians in a time of extraordinary transformation, over the seven-year period between the assassinations of Prime Minister Gandhi and her son Rajiv.

Premio Man Booker 2008Meet Balram Halwai, the `White Tiger'': servant, philosopher, entrepreneur, murderer... Born in a village in the dark heart of India, the son of a rickshaw puller, Balram is taken out of school by his family and put to work in a teashop. As he crushes coal and wipes tables, he nurses a dream of escape. His big chance comes when a rich village landlord hires him as a chauffeur for his son. Arriving in Delhi with his new master, Balram''s re-education begins, as he learns of a new morality at the heart of a new India. As the other servants flick through the pages of Murder Weekly, Balram begins to see how the Tiger might escape his cage. For surely any successful man must spill a little blood on his way to the top? The White Tiger is a tale of two Indias. Balram''s journey from the darkness of village life to the light of entrepreneurial success is utterly amoral, brilliantly irreverent, deeply endearing and altogether unforgettable. `Unlike almost any other Indian novel you might have read in recent years, this page-turner offers a completely bald, angry, unadorned portrait of the country as seen from the bottom of the heap; there''s not a sniff of saffron or a swirl of sari anywhere... The Indian tourist board won''t be pleased, but you''ll read it in a trice and find yourself gripped.'' Andrew Holgate, Sunday Times

'The most exciting novelist writing in English today' A. N. Wilson Manjunath Kumar is fourteen. He knows he is good at cricket - if not as good as his elder brother Radha. He knows that he fears and resents his domineering and cricket-obsessed father, admires his brilliantly talented sibling and is fascinated by the world of CSI and by curious and interesting scientific facts. But there are many things, about himself and about the world, that he doesn't know ...Sometimes it seems as though everyone around him has a clear idea of who Manju should be, except Manju himself. When Manju begins to get to know Radha's great rival, a boy as privileged and confident as Manju is not, everything in Manju's world begins to change and he is faced with decisions that will challenge both his sense of self and of the world around him ...

***NOMINATED FOR AN ACADEMY AWARD FOR BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY*** ***NOW A MAJOR NETFLIX PRODUCTION STARING PRIYANKA CHOPRA AND PRODUCED BY AVA DUVERNAY***As angry, smart and dark as Parasite.StandardThe anti-Slumdog MillionaireHollywood Reporter ___________Heres a strange fact: murder a man, and you feel responsible for his life - possessive, even. You know more about him than his father and mother; they knew his foetus, but you know his corpse.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 cockroaches, call-centres, thirty-six-million gods, slums, shopping malls, and crippling traffic jams, Balram comes to see how the Tiger might slip the bars of his cage.

The dazzling new book from the winner of the 2008 Man Booker Prize: one of the summers most eagerly anticipated works of fiction. In his compelling new work of fiction, Aravind Adiga has imagined the small Indian city of Kittur, an everytown nestling on the coast south of Goa and north of Calicut. Through the myriad and distinctive voices of its inhabitants, an entire Indian world comes vividly and unforgettably to life. From a middle-aged Communist to an Islamic terrorist; from the young children of a Tamil building-site worker to a privileged and alienated schoolboy; from an idealistic journalist to a Brahmin housemaid, Adiga has produced a microcosm of Indian life in the 80s, the years between the assassinations of Indira Gandhi and her son Rajiv. Muslim, Christian and Hindu, high-caste and low-caste, rich and poor: all of Indian life - the sorrowful parade of humanity - is here. Journeying through Kitturs streets and schoolyards, bedrooms and businesses, its inner workings and outer limits, Adiga conjures a remarkable fictional landscape. Sizzling with acid observations, and textured with wicked humour and gentle humanity, Between the Assassinations is a triumph of voice and imagination.

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 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.

Born in the dark heart of India, Balram gets a break when he is hired as a driver for his village's wealthiest man, two house Pomeranians (Puddles and Cuddles), and the rich man's (very unlucky) son. From behind the wheel of their Honda City car, Balram's new world is a revelation. While his peers flip through the pages of "Murder Weekly" ("Love -- Rape -- Revenge!"), barter for girls, drink liquor (Thunderbolt), and perpetuate the Great Rooster Coop of Indian society, Balram watches his employers bribe foreign ministers for tax breaks, barter for girls, drink liquor (single-malt whiskey), and play their own role in the Rooster Coop. Balram learns how to siphon gas, deal with corrupt mechanics, and refill and resell Johnnie Walker Black Label bottles (all but one). He also finds a way out of the Coop that no one else inside it can perceive.

Introducing a major literary talent, The White Tiger offers a story of coruscating wit, blistering suspense, and questionable morality, told by the most volatile, captivating, and utterly inimitable narrator that this millennium has yet seen. Balram Halwai is a complicated man. Servant. Philosopher. Entrepreneur. Murderer. Over the course of seven nights, by the scattered light of a preposterous chandelier, Balram tells us the terrible and transfixing story of how he came to be a success in life -- having nothing but his own wits to help him along. Born in the dark heart of India, Balram gets a break when he is hired as a driver for his village''s wealthiest man, two house Pomeranians (Puddles and Cuddles), and the rich man''s (very unlucky) son. From behind the wheel of their Honda City car, Balram''s new world is a revelation. While his peers flip through the pages of Murder Weekly ("Love -- Rape -- Revenge!"), barter for girls, drink liquor (Thunderbolt), and perpetuate the Great Rooster Coop of Indian society, Balram watches his employers bribe foreign ministers for tax breaks, barter for girls, drink liquor (single-malt whiskey), and play their own role in the Rooster Coop. Balram learns how to siphon gas, deal with corrupt mechanics, and refill and resell Johnnie Walker Black Label bottles (all but one). He also finds a way out of the Coop that no one else inside it can perceive.

Novela ganadora del Man Booker Prize 2008Les presentamos a Balram Halwai, alias Tigre Blanco, sirviente, filósofo, emprendedor, malhechor... Durante siete noches, a la luz mortecina de una ridícula araña, Balram nos va a contar su historia. Nacido en una villa en el corazon de la India, trabaja en una tienda de te. Mientras machaca carbon y limpia mesas se va formando un sueño en su cabeza: el de escapar de la orilla del Ganges, en cuyas profundidades se han podrido generaciones enteras. Para ello se traslada a Delhi, donde sera contratado como chofer. Mientras los otros sirvientes hojean la ultima revista de sucesos, Balram empieza a vislumbrar como el Tigre va a poder escapar de su jaula. Claro que ¿que hombre de exito no se ha visto obligado a derramar un poco de sangre en su camino a la cima? Tigre blanco es una historia absolutamente irreverente, profundamente tierna y, desde luego, inolvidable. Novela de lectura agil y divertida, que versa sobre la realidad de la India con un punto de vista fresco y atrevidoEl mensaje de Adiga no es sutil, ni nuevo, pero la voz sardonica de Balram es cautivadora y sus agudas observaciones del orden social son al mismo tiempo acertadisimas y desasosegantes. The New Yorker En muchos sentidos es la novela perfecta. (...) Es muy dificil hallarle algun problema estructural." Michael Portillo, presidente del jurado del Man Booker Prize y escritor britanico

The White Tiger has been sold in 19 territories, and has been an international success both critically and commercially

Als wurde man an einer siebentagigen Erkundung der Stadt Kittur und ihrer Besonderheiten teilnehmen, so fuhrt Aravind Adiga in seinem neuen Buch, einem Zyklus von Geschichten, den Leser durch diese brodelnde fiktive Stadt, die deutlich erkennbare Zuge Bangalores tragt. Wie in Adigas preisgekrontem Debut "Der weie Tiger" werden mit Witz und Furor, Mitgefuhl und Humor, Mut und Leidenschaft Geschichten erzahlt, in denen die unbarmherzigen Gegensatze und der unbeugsame Uberlebenswille im heutigen Indien plastisch werden. Da ist der zwolfjahrige Ziauddin, der in einem Teehaus in der Nahe des Bahnhofs aushilft und, weil er einem hellhautigen Fremden vertraut, einen groen Fehler macht. Da ist ein privilegierter Schuljunge, der aus Protest gegen das Kastenwesen an seiner Schule Sprengstoff zundet. Und da ist George DSouza, der Moskitomann, der sich bei der reizenden, jungen Mrs Gomes zum Gartner und dann zum Chauffeur hocharbeitet und alles verliert, als er die strengen Grenzen zu uberschreiten versucht. Aravind Adiga, dessen "Weier Tiger" den bedeutenden Booker-Prize gewann und zum Weltbestseller wurde, ist ein begnadeter Erzahler und Menschenkenner, und in dem reichen Panaroma von Figuren und Geschichten aus Kittur, die kunstvoll miteinander verwoben sind, erkennen wir fasziniert eine fremde Welt, die doch auch unsere ist, blicken in Abgrunde menschlicher Kampfe und lesen von Hoffnungen und Wunschen, die uns vertraut sind.