Aravind Adiga

Balram Halwai is a complicated man. Servant. Philosopher. Entrepreneur. Murderer. Over the course of seven nights, by the scattered light of a preposterous chandelier, Balram tells the terrible and transfixing story of how he came to be a success in life -- having nothing but his own wits to help him along.

Real estate developer Dharmen Shah rose from nothing to create an empire. When Shah offers a generous buyout to a group of neighbors in a once respectable, now crumbling apartment building, they can't believe their good fortune. Except, that is, for Masterji, a retired schoolteacher who refuses to abandon the building he has long called home. As the demolition deadline looms, desires mount; neghbors become enemies, and acquaintances turn into conspirators...

From the New York Times-bestselling winner of the Man Booker Prize 2008 -- a powerful and striking new collection. Welcome to Kittur, India. Of its 193,432 residents, only 89 declare themselves to be without religion or caste. And if the characters in Between the Assassinations are any indication, Kittur is an extraordinary crossroads of the brightest minds and the poorest morals, the up-and-coming and the downtrodden, and of an India that modern...

In this short story collection set in the Indian city of Kittur sometime between the assassination of Indira Gandhi in 1984 and that of her son Rajiv in 1991, Adiga creates a cast of characters--from a twelve-year old boy to a Marxist-Maoist Party member--who are immersed in class struggles and their own personal denouements.

Balram Halwai is a complicated man. Servant. Philosopher. Entrepreneur. Murderer. Over the course of seven nights, by the scattered light of a preposterous chandelier, Balram tells the terrible and transfixing story of how he came to be a success in life--having nothing but his own wits to help him along.

Novel based on illegal immigrant in Sydney, Australia, denied refugee status after he fled from Sri Lanka.