Aravind Adiga Wiki, Age, Girlfriend, Wife, Children, Family, Biography & More

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; as of 2021) in Madras (now Chennai), Tamil Nadu, India. His zodiac sign is Scorpio. Aravind received his initial school education at Canara High School, Mangalore. In 1990, he started attending St. Aloysius College, Mangaluru for his senior secondary education. [1] In the same year, he moved to Australia and started his schooling at James Ruse Agricultural High School, Australia. [2] In 1997, he obtained a degree in English literature at Columbia College of Columbia University, New York City. Later, he went on to pursue M.Phil. at Magdalen College, Oxford. [3]

Physical Appearance

Hair Colour: Black

Eye Colour: 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 a former chairman of Karnataka Bank. His maternal great-grandfather’s name was U. Rama Rao, and he was a popular medical officer and a 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 journalist at the Financial Times. As a journalist at financial times, he worked to cover the stock market and investment protocols. Aravind also interviewed Donald Trump during his working tenure at 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, he left the 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. V. S. Naipaul of Indian ethnicity who was born on the Caribbean island of Trinidad was also on this list to earn the Man Booker prize. Aravind Adiga released “Between the Assassinations” a set of linked short stories in 2009 soon after winning the Man Booker prize. In 2011, the Last Man in Tower and in 2016, Selection Day were the two novels released by Aravind. His novel The White Tiger was adapted into a feature film on 6 January 2021. It was released in Las Vegas on Netflix and titled “The White Tiger.” Adarsh Gourav (in his first leading role), Priyanka Chopra, and Rajkummar Rao were the main characters of the movie.

Amnesty, his novel was published in 2020 that was based on the conditions of the Indian immigrants in foreign countries. This book was the 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’s literature is the literature of darkness and defeat, of alienation and isolation, of imprisonment and escape.”

Facts/Trivia

• Aravind Adiga stood first in SSLC (Senior Secondary Leave Certificate) at Mangalore state-level examinations in 1990.

• In 1988, a book by Peter Carey titled ‘Oscar and Lucinda’ was online reviewed by Aravind Adiga. This review was displayed in The Second Circle, an online literary review.

• The differences in growth between the modern global economy and the rise of India was incorporated by Aravind in his novel ‘The White Tiger.’ The Leading character of his novel was Balram who was a very poor rural man of India. In the novel, Adiga narrated,
  

  Criticism by writers like Flaubert, Balzac and Dickens of the 19th century helped England and France become better societies.”

  The interesting piece of writing from this book was that he wanted to highlight the brutal injustice of the societies in India and the nil control of central politics,

  At a time when India is going through great changes and, with China, is likely to inherit the world from the West, it is important that writers like me try to highlight the brutal injustices of society. In India, there has never been strong central political control, which is probably why the family is still so important. If you’re rude to your mother in India, it’s a crime as bad as stealing would be here. India and China are too powerful to be controlled by the West anymore. We’ve got to get beyond that as Indians and take responsibility for what is holding us back.”

  

  Aravind Adiga with his book The White Tiger

• Aravind Adiga fired his agent in 2007 who arranged a contract with Atlantic Books at the London Bookfair for Aravind.  Soon after winning the Man Booker prize in 2008, he was accused of these charges.

• 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 this novel would be adapted into a feature film.

• In 2009, Aravind Adiga’s second novel ‘Between the Assassinations’ was the contender for the John Llewellyn-Rhys Memorial Prize.

• From all around the world, several renowned authors and writers academically criticised Adiga’s novel many times. A Pakistani blogger, Sarmad Iqbal, reviewed Adiga’s novel The White Tiger as,
  

  This novel in multiple ways was an eye opener for me about the rising India as being a Pakistani I grew up listening to and learning nothing good about India. As I got acquainted with all the dark secrets of a rising India divulged by Adiga in this novel, I came across several astonishing similarities between what goes in the ‘enemy state’ I knew from my childhood and my own country Pakistan.”

  In 2010, Mendes remarked,

  Cardboard cut-out’ title character equipped with an inauthentic voice that ultimately undermines issues of class politics.”

• A part of prize money, received by Aravind Adiga after winning the Man Booker prize in 2008, was donated by Aravind to the St. Aloysius College where he initially studied.

• In a conversation with a media house, Aravind Adiga revealed his literary influences to the three black American writers of the post-World War II era (in order), Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, and Richard Wright and Aravind further stated that he identified himself particularly as an Indian writer. He explained,
  

  It might make more sense to speak of influences on this book, rather than on me. The influences on The White Tiger are three black American writers of the post-World War II era (in order), Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, and Richard Wright. The odd thing is that I haven’t read any of them for years and years — I read Ellison’s Invisible Man in 1995 or 1996, and have never returned to it — but now that the book is done, I can see how deeply it’s indebted to them. As a writer, I don’t feel tied to any one identity; I’m happy to draw influences from wherever they come.”

• In an interview, Aravind Adiga stated that he was afraid that the white tiger would eat him too. He revealed,
  

  I had come out of complete obscurity, and at first I found it hard to deal with the fact I was a published writer. Once you have written a book like The White Tiger it’s very hard to escape from the shadow of it. I was frightened the White Tiger would eat me up too.”

• As per Adiga, during his journalism career, he got the opportunity to interact with new people, which led him to gather material to become a kind writer of his book. In an interview with the Guardian, he stated,
  

  Journalism was a way of supporting myself and of forcing myself to meet and talk to people I knew I wouldn’t meet otherwise. I was gathering material to become the kind of writer I wanted to be. I had no idea how long this would take – potentially forever. I assumed I’d have to keep working as a freelance or as a staff journalist somewhere, but I’d grown up in India and I knew I could live without money.”

• Aravind was asked in an interview that his writings in The White Tiger were somewhat related to the movie Slumdog Millionaire that was based on the situations of modern India which were realistic and without any clear ending. In his opinion,
  

  I can tell you this much: if I were born poor (as most Indians are), and I were a servant, I wouldn’t be pinning much hope on winning a TV show in order 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 is the director of the movie The White Tiger. Adiga and Bahrani are friends since their undergraduate days in the 1990s. Aravind was also thanked and given credit by Bahrani in most of Bharani’s films including Man Push Cart, Chop Shop, Goodbye Solo and 99 Homes.

• As per Aravind Adiga, his first novel The White Tiger was meant to be fun and engaging, and it was not related to any social or political disclosure. While conversing with a media house, he explained,
  

  The White Tiger is a novel—not a social or political treatise; I hope the readers remember that. It’s meant to be fun, and engaging, and provocative.”

• As a migrant to Australia, Aravind Adiga explained the dependence of Australia on cheap Asian labour. He stated in an interview that he became a minority South Asian when he landed in Australia. He narrated the lifestyle of Australia,
  

  Australia is famous for its lifestyle. But it is increasingly dependent on cheap Asian labour, which would shock many [Australians]. When I land here, I become a minority, a South Asian, something that doesn’t exist in India where, as a person of colour, the kinds of stories that would interest me change.”