Book Overview

Adigas first novel, The White Tiger, reveled in the darker consequences of a world turned flat. The story described a servant seduced by visions of wealth who murders his way out of poverty. It was as popular as it was controversial in India, and in Britain it captured the Man Booker Prize (2008). He wanted The White Tiger to both entertain and disturb so that readers would think long and hard about how the economic growth brought to India by globalization is transforming the countrys culture. With Between the Assassinations, Adiga has certainly demonstrated that he is an important literary talent, a writer capable of evocation without extravagance, a sensitive chronicler of modern India. Perhaps the best account of this collection would be no more than a montage of memorable images from the teeming city, founded and forged in Adigas imagination: the Hindu buses beating the Christian buses in a race back to the depot; a boy cycling furiously, a block of ice strapped to the back of his bicycle, desperate to reach the top of the hill before it melts; or the kid with the black kite seen taunting the heavens, the lightning in a storm.