Aravind Adiga
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| Aravind Adiga | |
|---|---|
| Born | 23 October 1974 Madras, India |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Ethnicity | Indian |
| Citizenship | Australian |
| Alma mater | Columbia University |
| Notable work(s) | The White Tiger |
| Notable award(s) | 2008 Man Booker Prize (The White Tiger) |
| Official website | |
 Literature portal |
|
Aravind Adiga (Kannada: ಅರವಿಂದ ಅಡಿಗ, born 23 October 1974[1]) is an Indian journalist and author. His debut novel, The White Tiger, won the 2008 Man Booker Prize.[2]
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[edit] Biography
[edit] Early life and education
Aravind Adiga was born in Madras (now Chennai) on the 23rd of October, 1974 to Dr. K. Madhava Adiga and Usha Adiga, both of whom hailed from Mangalore. His paternal grandfather was Late K. Suryanarayana Adiga, former chairman of Karnataka bank.[3][4] 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[4][5]. 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.[6] He also studied at Magdalen College, Oxford, where one of his tutors was Hermione Lee.
[edit] Career
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.[7] He was subsequently hired by TIME, where he remained a South Asia correspondent for three years before going freelance.[8] During his freelance period, he wrote The White Tiger. He currently lives in Mumbai, India.[9]
[edit] Booker Prize
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 ancestry, but is not India-born.) The five other authors on the shortlist included one other Indian writer (Amitav Ghosh) and another first-time writer (Steve Toltz).[10] The novel studies the contrast between India's rise as a modern global economy and the lead character, Balram, who comes from crushing rural poverty.[11]
