Reading Order
The White Tiger Reading Order
Aravind Adiga's The White Tiger (2008) is a Man Booker Prize-winning debut novel narrated by Balram Halwai — a poor boy from Bihar who murders his employer and becomes a successful entrepreneur in Bangalore, writing letters to China's Premier Wen Jiabao about what it takes to succeed in the new India. It is the sharpest fictional portrait of India's class system and its economic transformation.
Where to start
The White Tiger
Complete The White Tiger Book List
- 1Buy
The White Tiger
Aravind Adiga·2008·The complete standalone novel. No sequels; start and finish here. - 2Buy
Between the Assassinations
Aravind Adiga·2008·Adiga's linked story collection, set in the fictional South Indian city of Kittur in the years between Indira Gandhi's assassination in 1984 and Rajiv Gandhi's in 1991 — twelve stories about class, caste, and the lives of people on the margins of an India in transition. Read after The White Tiger for the full range of Adiga's India.
The White Tiger — Frequently Asked Questions
What is the white tiger in the novel?
In the novel, 'the white tiger' is the term Balram Halwai uses for himself — a rare creature, a man who was born in poverty in the Darkness (the term he uses for rural Bihar) but who possesses the intelligence and ruthlessness to escape the social order and become a master entrepreneur. His school inspector used the phrase to describe him as the most intelligent boy in a generation, and Balram uses it throughout the novel to explain why he was capable of doing what he did, and why his story is worth telling to the Premier of China.
Is The White Tiger critical of India?
The White Tiger is sharply critical of the corruption, inequality, and caste hierarchy of contemporary India, and it was controversial in India when it was published: some Indian critics argued that it presented a one-sided, negative portrait of the country designed for a Western audience and the Man Booker Prize committee rather than reflecting the full complexity of Indian society. Adiga has responded that the novel is critical of specific aspects of Indian society rather than of the country as a whole, and that the Indian press largely approved of it while some Indian-diaspora writers and critics did not.
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