Aravind Adiga is a prominent Indian author who won the Man Booker Prize for his first novel ‘The White Tiger’ in 2008.
Wiki/Biography
Aravind Adiga was born on Wednesday, 23 October 1974 (age 46 years; in 2021) in Madras (now Chennai), Tamil Nadu, India. His zodiac sign is Scorpio. Aravind received his early school education at Canara High School, Mangalore. In 1990, he began attending St. Aloysius, Mangaluru for his senior secondary education. In the same year, he moved to Australia and started his schooling at James Ruse Agricultural High School, Australia. In 1997, he earned a degree in English literature at Columbia College of Columbia University, New York City. Later, he went on to pursue an M.Phil. at Magdalen College, Oxford.
Physical appearance
Hair Color: Black
Eye Color: Black
Family
Parents & Siblings
His father’s name is Dr. K. Madhava Adiga and his mother’s name is Usha Adiga. His paternal grandfather’s name was K. Suryanarayana Adiga, and he was the former chairman of Karnataka Bank. His maternal grandfather’s name was U. Rama Rao, and he was a popular medical officer and Congress politician from Madras, Chennai. He has a brother named Anand Adiga.
Career
After completing his education at Oxford, Aravind Adiga started working as a financial reporter at the Financial Times. As a journalist at the time of finance, he worked to cover the stock market and investment protocols. Aravind also interviewed Donald Trump while he was working at the Financial Times. His articles were also published in Money Magazine. Later, at Time Magazine, he worked for three years as a South Asia correspondent. Soon after, he left his job at Time and began working as a freelancer. In 2008, he wrote his first novel ‘The White Tiger.’ Soon, he won the Man Booker prize for this novel and became the fourth Indian writer to receive this award after Salman Rushdie, Arundhati Roy and Kiran Desai. VS Naipaul of Indian ethnicity who was born on the Caribbean island of Trinidad is also on this list to earn the Man Booker prize. Aravind Adiga released “Between the Assassinations” a set of linked short stories in 2009 shortly after winning the Man Booker prize. In 2011, Last Man in the Tower and in 2016, Election Day are two novels released by Aravind. His novel The White Tiger was adapted into a feature film on January 6, 2021. It was released in Las Vegas on Netflix and is titled “The White Tiger.” Adarsh Gourav (in his first lead role), Priyanka Chopra, and Rajkummar Rao are the main characters of the film.
White Tiger movie poster
Amnesty, his novel published in 2020 based on the situation of Indian immigrants in foreign countries. The book is a contender for the Miles Franklin Award in 2021. In 2020, the review given by The New York Times for Adiga’s novel Amnesty was,
Adiga literature is the literature of darkness and defeat, isolation and exile, imprisonment and flight.”
Facts/Trivia
- Aravind Adiga stood first in SSLC (Senior Secondary Leaving Certificate) at Mangalore state level examination in 1990.
- In 1988, a book by Peter Carey titled ‘Oscar and Lucinda’ was reviewed online by Aravind Adiga. This review appeared in The Second Circle, an online literary review.
- After winning the Man Booker prize, in 2009 more than 200,000 copies of Adiga’s novel “The White Tiger” were sold instantly. In April 2009, it was announced that the novel would be adapted into a feature film.
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In 2009, Aravind Adiga’s second novel ‘Between the Assassinations’ was a contender for the John Llewellyn-Rhys Memorial Prize.
- Part of the prize money, which Aravind Adiga received after winning the Man Booker prize in 2008, was donated by Aravind to the College of St. Aloysius where he studied at first.
- In a conversation with a media house, Aravind Adiga revealed his literary influence to three black American writers of the post-World War II era (in a row), Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, and Richard Wright and Aravind further stated that he identified himself. especially as an Indian writer. He has explained,
It probably makes more sense to talk about the influence on this book, rather than on me. Influences on The White Tiger are three black American writers of the post-World War II era (in succession), Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, and Richard Wright. The strange thing is that I haven’t read any of it in years — I read Ellison’s Invisible Man in 1995 or 1996, and never got back to it — but now that the book is finished, I can see how indebted it is. to them. As a writer, I don’t feel tied to any identity; I’m happy to draw influences from wherever they come from.”
- In an interview, Aravind Adiga stated that he was afraid the white tiger would eat him too. He revealed,
I had come out of obscurity completely, and at first I found it hard to deal with the fact I was a published writer. Once you’ve written a book like The White Tiger, it’s very difficult to escape its shadow. I’m afraid the White Tiger will eat me too.”
- According to Adiga, during his journalism career, he got the opportunity to interact with new people, which led him to gather material to become a good writer of his book. In an interview with the Guardian, he stated,
Journalism is a way to support myself and force myself to meet and talk to people I know I wouldn’t meet otherwise. I’m gathering the ingredients to become the writer I want to be. I don’t know how long this will take – potentially forever. I assumed I would have to continue working as a freelancer or as a staff reporter somewhere, but I had grown up in India and I knew I could live without money.”
- Aravind was asked in an interview that his writing in The White Tiger was somewhat related to the film Slumdog Millionaire which was based on a realistic modern Indian situation and without any clear ending. In his opinion,
I can tell you this much: if I had been born poor (like most Indians), and I had been a slave, I would not have put much hope into winning a TV show to win my freedom.”
- Aravind Adiga dedicated his novel The White Tiger to his college friend Ramin Bahrani. Ramin is an American director and screenwriter who directed the film The White Tiger. Adiga and Bahrani have been friends since their undergraduate days in the 1990s. Aravind was also thanked and credited by Bahrani in many of Bharani’s films including Man Push Cart, Chop Shop, Goodbye Solo and 99 Homes.
- According to Aravind Adiga, his first novel The White Tiger was meant to be fun and interesting, and it was not related to any social or political revelations. While chatting with a media house, he explained,
The White Tiger is a novel—not a social or political treatise; I hope readers remember that. It’s meant to be fun, and interesting, and provocative.”
- As an immigrant to Australia, Aravind Adiga explains Australia’s dependence on cheap Asian labour. He stated in an interview that he became a South Asian minority when he landed in Australia. He tells about the Australian way of life,
Australia is famous for its lifestyle. But it is increasingly dependent on cheap Asian labor, which will surprise many [Australians]. When I got here, I became a minority, South Asian, something that didn’t exist in India where, as a person of color, the kind of stories that interested me changed.”
Categories: Biography
Source: SCHOOL TRANG DAI
