'The White Tiger' wins the 2008 Man Booker Prize for Fiction
14 October 2008

Indian author Aravind Adiga was tonight (Tuesday 14th October) named the winner of the £50,000 Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2008 for his novel 'The White Tiger'. The thirty-three year old novelist was presented the prize at an awards ceremony at Guildhall, London. Adiga becomes the fourth debut novelist, and the second Indian debut novelist, to win the award in the forty year history of the prize. The three other debut novelists to have won the prize are Keri Hulme for her novel 'The Bone People' in 1985, DBC Pierre in 2003 for his novel 'Vernon God Little' and Arundhati Roy in 1997 for 'The God of Small Things'.

Aravind Adiga's winning novel The White Tiger is decribed as a ‘compelling, angry and darkly humorous' novel about a man's journey from Indian village life to entrepreneurial success. It was described by one reviewer as an ‘unadorned portrait' of India seen ‘from the bottom of the heap'.

Adiga, who has wanted to be a novelist since he was a boy, was born in Madras and now lives in Mumbai. He becomes the fifth Indian author to win the prize, joining VS Naipaul, Salman Rushdie, Arundhati Roy and Kiran Desai who won the prize in 1971, 1981, 1997 and 2006 respectively. In addition, The White Tiger is the ninth winning novel to take its inspiration from India or Indian identity.

The White Tiger was one of six shortlisted titles for the prize. Also shortlisted for this year's prize were Sebastian Barry for 'The Secret Scripture' (Faber), Amitav Ghosh for 'Sea of Poppies' (John Murray), Linda Grant for 'The Clothes on Their Backs' (Virago), Philip Hensher for 'The Northern Clemency' (Fourth Estate) and Steve Toltz for his debut novel 'A Fraction of the Whole' (Hamish Hamilton). Each of the six shortlisted authors, including the winner, receives £2,500 and a designer-bound edition of their book.

The judging panel for the 2008 Man Booker Prize for Fiction comprised: Michael Portillo, former MP and Cabinet Minister; Alex Clark, editor of Granta; Louise Doughty, novelist; James Heneage, founder of Ottakar's bookshops; and Hardeep Singh Kohli, TV and radio broadcaster. Michael Portillo commented: "The judges found the decision difficult because the shortlist contained such strong candidates. In the end, The White Tiger prevailed because the judges felt that it shocked and entertained in equal measure.

"The novel undertakes the extraordinarily difficult task of gaining and holding the reader's sympathy for a thoroughgoing villain. The book gains from dealing with pressing social issues and significant global developments with astonishing humour."

Portillo went on to explain that the novel had won overall because of 'its originality'. He said that The White Tiger presented 'a different aspect of India' and was a novel with 'enormous literary merit'.

Aravind Adiga studied at Columbia and Oxford Universities and is a former correspondent for Time magazine in India. Adiga's articles have also appeared in publications such as the Financial Times, Independent and Sunday Times.