--- product_id: 112866790 title: "The White Tiger: A Novel" price: "€ 6.02" currency: EUR in_stock: false reviews_count: 13 url: https://www.desertcart.be/products/112866790-the-white-tiger-a-novel store_origin: BE region: Belgium --- # The White Tiger: A Novel **Price:** € 6.02 **Availability:** ❌ Out of Stock ## Quick Answers - **What is this?** The White Tiger: A Novel - **How much does it cost?** € 6.02 with free shipping - **Is it available?** Currently out of stock - **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.be](https://www.desertcart.be/products/112866790-the-white-tiger-a-novel) ## Best For - Customers looking for quality international products ## Why This Product - Free international shipping included - Worldwide delivery with tracking - 15-day hassle-free returns ## Description NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE The stunning Booker Prize–winning novel from the author of Amnesty and Selection Day that critics have likened to Richard Wright’s Native Son , The White Tiger follows a darkly comic Bangalore driver through the poverty and corruption of modern India’s caste society. “This is the authentic voice of the Third World, like you've never heard it before” (John Burdett, Bangkok 8 ). The white tiger of this novel is Balram Halwai, a poor Indian villager whose great ambition leads him to the zenith of Indian business culture, the world of the Bangalore entrepreneur. On the occasion of the president of China’s impending trip to Bangalore, Balram writes a letter to him describing his transformation and his experience as driver and servant to a wealthy Indian family, which he thinks exemplifies the contradictions and complications of Indian society. Recalling The Death of Vishnu and Bangkok 8 in ambition, scope, The White Tiger is narrative genius with a mischief and personality all its own. Amoral, irreverent, deeply endearing, and utterly contemporary, this novel is an international publishing sensation—and a startling, provocative debut. Review: Once In A Generation - "He can read and write but he doesn't understand what he has read. He's half-baked. The country is full of people like him, and we entrust our glorious parliamentary democracy to characters like these. That's the tragedy of this country". "But pay attention: fully formed fellows after twelve years of school and four years of university wear nice suits, they join companies and take orders from other men for the rest of their lives. Entrepreneurs are made from half-baked clay." "We worship him in our temples because he is the shining example of how to serve your master with absolute fidelity, love and devotion. These are the gods they have foisted on us. Understand how hard it is for a man to win his freedom." "You, young man, are an intelligent, honest and vivacious fellow in this crowd of idiots and thugs. In any jungle what is the rarest of animals ... the creature that comes along once in a generation? I thought about it and said: the white tiger." ************ White Tiger begins with an entrepreneur writing a letter to Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, who is planning a state visit to Bangalore, and tells his life story. Balram grew up so poor he didn't have a name or birthday; his mother was sick and his father too busy as a Bihar rickshaw puller to make a record. After a few years of education he was pulled from school to pay off his sister's dowry by working in a tea shop. Thugs extort money from villagers, hospitals bribe politicians and cheat patients. He rejects religion for making people servile. Balram moves to a nearby city, learning to drive a limousine. Ringing bells at rich people's gates, Balram gets a job as a chauffeur and servant for one of the landlords of his home town. The landlord's son Ashok has just returned from New York with his pretty new wife, Pinky Madam. Balram keeps his ears open, learning his employer and coworker's secrets. He becomes the number one driver over rival employees. The boss is in with corrupt politicians who steal elections and sell public resources for personal gain. A huge kickback is demanded by the Great Socialist. Ashok, Pinky and Balram head for New Delhi to fix the problem, bribing a minister. Delhi is a vast city of crazily numbered streets and endless roundabouts, of extreme air pollution and income disparity. Drivers and servants live in horrible conditions but better than those on the streets. Balram begins to hate the squalor and aspires to the life of his masters. Pinky causes a tragic accident and leaves for New York; Ashok is left alone with Balram. In addition to his driving, Balram cooks, cleans and washes Ashok's feet. He begins to cheat the boss by selling gas, side rides and inflating repairs. In the jungle Maoists smuggle Chinese bombs, waiting to overthrow their masters. When Balram's grandmother arranges a marriage to get his dowry something snaps. He had been sending all his money home but stopped months earlier. Ashok's family made him sign a confession for a crime he didn't commit, wanting him to serve jail time for someone else. Servants were expected to accept abuse without complaint, relatives punished for a servant's transgressions. His nephew arrives unexpectedly from the village with instructions for Balram to look after him. When Ashok makes plans to replace him he takes a terrible revenge, becoming a businessman in Bangalore. Aravind Adiga won the Booker Prize in 2008 for White Tiger, his first novel, which went on to become an Academy Award nominated film. He grew up in a family of doctors, bankers and politicians, not the background of the narrator, but his voice is authentic. Adiga's writing is iconoclastic and must have offended some readers. His critique of conditions of poverty and ignorance, rise of capitalism and corruption is both satirical and sympathetic. As a debut by a young author it is impressive. Although Adiga is comic and entertaining throughout he embeds serious social insights into his story. Review: Story of escape from a rooster's coop - 2008 appears to the be the year to celebrate the story of unconventional transformation, from rags to riches, of India's underdogs - the folks at the very dregs of India's social, cultural, economic and caste strata. "Slumdog Millionaire" has been nominated for a large number of Oscars (with the Oscar ceremony just a few hours away) and Mr. Adiga's book - white tiger - having won the 2008 Man Booker Prize. Both of these share the common theme of putting on center stage the abject filth, absolute corruption and horror of what life at the bottom of India's society can be. All of this interwoven into an entertaining tale of the transformation of an underprivileged protagonist who share the common strains of sheer determination and willingness to take a big risk. In Mr. Adiga's case, it is the tale of transformation of an ordinary chauffeur into a budding entrepreneur in the heart of India's technological center, Bangalore. This is not a story you are likely to read in the pages of Economist or Business week, but every bit as realistic and far more interesting than any your may find there. The story unfolds in a series of letters which the protagonist, Mr. Balram, writes to the Premier of China who is on a visit to India to learn about entrepreneurship. And there is a lot for Mr. Jiabao, and all of us to learn. While Mr. Adiga claims his novel to be a work of fiction, but it is fiction far closer to reality than I seen in recent past in an English novel. The farce that Indian schooling system for the underprivileged is with it drunken teachers and stealing of school uniforms for the poor, the electoral system where only the corrupt stand and looting of ballot boxes and intimidation of anyone wanting to vote is rampant, the unfettered brutality of the police and feudal lords of the anyone without a voice, the horrors of India's dowry system and the abject filth in which the servants live sometime right within the posh housing complex of the upper class are all interwoven into this satirical and entertaining tale. Mr. Adiga's depiction in the character of Ashok, Balram's master, whom Balram kills to make his transformation, of the hollow idealism and impotency of the foreign return middle-class Indian ever ready to make any compromise in the face of corruption to sustain their position of privilege, is also very poignant. This novel lacks the intellectual depth in the depiction of emotions and character as in Umrigar's "The Space Between Us" or the literary finesse of Ms Arundhati Roy in The God of Small Things, two other novels that cover the same clientele, but is more sardonic, comprehensive and witty in its depiction of the absurdity and horrors of life at the bottom of society. Mr. Adiga uses the simile of an overcrowded rooster's coop of the variety that any Indian who has gone to buy chicken in the market of Old Delhi can relate to, to depict how difficult the escape from such a coop is made not only by the net but the other chickens inside who are more likely to hold you back. An escape from this coop is as rare a the sighting of a white tiger, the title of this notable first novel by Aravind Adiga. ## Technical Specifications | Specification | Value | |---------------|-------| | Best Sellers Rank | #158,852 in Kindle Store ( See Top 100 in Kindle Store ) #38 in Epistolary Fiction (Books) #94 in Literary Satire Fiction #180 in Cultural Heritage Fiction | ## Images ![The White Tiger: A Novel - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/812dlaBhbOL.jpg) ## Customer Reviews ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Once In A Generation *by D***R on March 8, 2022* "He can read and write but he doesn't understand what he has read. He's half-baked. The country is full of people like him, and we entrust our glorious parliamentary democracy to characters like these. That's the tragedy of this country". "But pay attention: fully formed fellows after twelve years of school and four years of university wear nice suits, they join companies and take orders from other men for the rest of their lives. Entrepreneurs are made from half-baked clay." "We worship him in our temples because he is the shining example of how to serve your master with absolute fidelity, love and devotion. These are the gods they have foisted on us. Understand how hard it is for a man to win his freedom." "You, young man, are an intelligent, honest and vivacious fellow in this crowd of idiots and thugs. In any jungle what is the rarest of animals ... the creature that comes along once in a generation? I thought about it and said: the white tiger." ************ White Tiger begins with an entrepreneur writing a letter to Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, who is planning a state visit to Bangalore, and tells his life story. Balram grew up so poor he didn't have a name or birthday; his mother was sick and his father too busy as a Bihar rickshaw puller to make a record. After a few years of education he was pulled from school to pay off his sister's dowry by working in a tea shop. Thugs extort money from villagers, hospitals bribe politicians and cheat patients. He rejects religion for making people servile. Balram moves to a nearby city, learning to drive a limousine. Ringing bells at rich people's gates, Balram gets a job as a chauffeur and servant for one of the landlords of his home town. The landlord's son Ashok has just returned from New York with his pretty new wife, Pinky Madam. Balram keeps his ears open, learning his employer and coworker's secrets. He becomes the number one driver over rival employees. The boss is in with corrupt politicians who steal elections and sell public resources for personal gain. A huge kickback is demanded by the Great Socialist. Ashok, Pinky and Balram head for New Delhi to fix the problem, bribing a minister. Delhi is a vast city of crazily numbered streets and endless roundabouts, of extreme air pollution and income disparity. Drivers and servants live in horrible conditions but better than those on the streets. Balram begins to hate the squalor and aspires to the life of his masters. Pinky causes a tragic accident and leaves for New York; Ashok is left alone with Balram. In addition to his driving, Balram cooks, cleans and washes Ashok's feet. He begins to cheat the boss by selling gas, side rides and inflating repairs. In the jungle Maoists smuggle Chinese bombs, waiting to overthrow their masters. When Balram's grandmother arranges a marriage to get his dowry something snaps. He had been sending all his money home but stopped months earlier. Ashok's family made him sign a confession for a crime he didn't commit, wanting him to serve jail time for someone else. Servants were expected to accept abuse without complaint, relatives punished for a servant's transgressions. His nephew arrives unexpectedly from the village with instructions for Balram to look after him. When Ashok makes plans to replace him he takes a terrible revenge, becoming a businessman in Bangalore. Aravind Adiga won the Booker Prize in 2008 for White Tiger, his first novel, which went on to become an Academy Award nominated film. He grew up in a family of doctors, bankers and politicians, not the background of the narrator, but his voice is authentic. Adiga's writing is iconoclastic and must have offended some readers. His critique of conditions of poverty and ignorance, rise of capitalism and corruption is both satirical and sympathetic. As a debut by a young author it is impressive. Although Adiga is comic and entertaining throughout he embeds serious social insights into his story. ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Story of escape from a rooster's coop *by A***8 on February 23, 2009* 2008 appears to the be the year to celebrate the story of unconventional transformation, from rags to riches, of India's underdogs - the folks at the very dregs of India's social, cultural, economic and caste strata. "Slumdog Millionaire" has been nominated for a large number of Oscars (with the Oscar ceremony just a few hours away) and Mr. Adiga's book - white tiger - having won the 2008 Man Booker Prize. Both of these share the common theme of putting on center stage the abject filth, absolute corruption and horror of what life at the bottom of India's society can be. All of this interwoven into an entertaining tale of the transformation of an underprivileged protagonist who share the common strains of sheer determination and willingness to take a big risk. In Mr. Adiga's case, it is the tale of transformation of an ordinary chauffeur into a budding entrepreneur in the heart of India's technological center, Bangalore. This is not a story you are likely to read in the pages of Economist or Business week, but every bit as realistic and far more interesting than any your may find there. The story unfolds in a series of letters which the protagonist, Mr. Balram, writes to the Premier of China who is on a visit to India to learn about entrepreneurship. And there is a lot for Mr. Jiabao, and all of us to learn. While Mr. Adiga claims his novel to be a work of fiction, but it is fiction far closer to reality than I seen in recent past in an English novel. The farce that Indian schooling system for the underprivileged is with it drunken teachers and stealing of school uniforms for the poor, the electoral system where only the corrupt stand and looting of ballot boxes and intimidation of anyone wanting to vote is rampant, the unfettered brutality of the police and feudal lords of the anyone without a voice, the horrors of India's dowry system and the abject filth in which the servants live sometime right within the posh housing complex of the upper class are all interwoven into this satirical and entertaining tale. Mr. Adiga's depiction in the character of Ashok, Balram's master, whom Balram kills to make his transformation, of the hollow idealism and impotency of the foreign return middle-class Indian ever ready to make any compromise in the face of corruption to sustain their position of privilege, is also very poignant. This novel lacks the intellectual depth in the depiction of emotions and character as in Umrigar's "The Space Between Us" or the literary finesse of Ms Arundhati Roy in The God of Small Things, two other novels that cover the same clientele, but is more sardonic, comprehensive and witty in its depiction of the absurdity and horrors of life at the bottom of society. Mr. Adiga uses the simile of an overcrowded rooster's coop of the variety that any Indian who has gone to buy chicken in the market of Old Delhi can relate to, to depict how difficult the escape from such a coop is made not only by the net but the other chickens inside who are more likely to hold you back. An escape from this coop is as rare a the sighting of a white tiger, the title of this notable first novel by Aravind Adiga. ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Incredible Journey Through A Changing India *by W***N on September 6, 2008* A Man-Booker Prize nominated book by Aravind Adiga. They remain slaves because they can't see what is beautiful in this world -The Poet Iqbal, as quoted by Balram, the protagonist of the book. To read this book is to leave with the impression that India is a mess. It is 99% of the 2nd most populous nation on Earth being kept in chains of servitude by themselves. Adiga has written a compelling first novel on the liberation of a man born to be a servant of the rich. It describes the way that Balram, a boy born in the Darkness - small villages away from the coast, is sold into indentured servitude to pay off the dowry debts associated with marrying of a daughter. Balram, told by a school inspector that he is a White Tiger - something born once a generation, rises through sheer ambition to become a driver for a local landlord. Through his cunning, he is brought to Delhi to serve as driver for Ashok - the son of the landlord. As a driver, he begins to understand the relation between master and servant in his culture. The servant is nothing more than a throwaway item to be used and discarded. A pivotal moment of the book occurs when Ashok's wife demands to drive after a wild night out with her husband. On the way home, she hits and kills a young child. No one saw the accident. Yet, to be safe, the landlord's family arranges for Balram to confess to the hit-and-run accident. It is a source of pride for Balram's family - that he would do this for the master! From this point, Balram begins a series of rebellions leading up to the murder of Ashok and the theft of millions of rupees. This is not a vicious murder of a hated landlord. Rather, it is an amoral killing of the system that Ashok represents. It is the death of the old system. Yet the old system did not know it was dying. Balram runs away to the southern coast - to Bangalore, the tech capital - and sets up a taxi system for tech companies with the help of bribery of the police. When one of his drivers accidentally kills someone, he uses his connections in the police to sweep it under the rug. He protects his driver. Yet he insists on going to the family's house, paying his respects, giving them thousands of rupees, and hiring the killed boy's brother. The system is not dead, yet Adiga suggests it is changing as the few servants who free themselves change it from within. This is not what westerners would call a morality story in the Western sense. There is a man willing to kill to get ahead. This is a man held up as honorable. The beauty of Adiga's writing is it opens a window into the culture that lets you root for Balram, hold him as honorable, even as he does dishonorable things. Good read. --- ## Why Shop on Desertcart? - 🛒 **Trusted by 1.3+ Million Shoppers** — Serving international shoppers since 2016 - 🌍 **Shop Globally** — Access 737+ million products across 21 categories - 💰 **No Hidden Fees** — All customs, duties, and taxes included in the price - 🔄 **15-Day Free Returns** — Hassle-free returns (30 days for PRO members) - 🔒 **Secure Payments** — Trusted payment options with buyer protection - ⭐ **TrustPilot Rated 4.5/5** — Based on 8,000+ happy customer reviews **Shop now:** [https://www.desertcart.be/products/112866790-the-white-tiger-a-novel](https://www.desertcart.be/products/112866790-the-white-tiger-a-novel) --- *Product available on Desertcart Belgium* *Store origin: BE* *Last updated: 2026-05-22*