Shantaram

In 1978, gifted student and writer Greg Roberts turned to heroin when his marriage collapsed, feeding his addiction with a string of robberies. Caught and convicted, he was given a nineteen-year sentence. After two years, he escaped from a maximum-security prison, spending the next ten years on the run as Australia's most wanted man. Hiding in Bombay, he established a medical clinic for slum-dwellers, worked in the Bollywood film industry and served time in the notorious Arthur Road prison. He was recruited by one of the most charismatic branches of the Bombay mafia for whom he worked as a forger, counterfeiter, and smuggler, and fought alongside a unit of mujaheddin guerrilla fighters in Afghanistan. His debut novel, SHANTARAM, is based on this ten-year period of his life in Bombay. The result is an epic tale of slums and five-star hotels, romantic love and prison torture, mafia gang wars and Bollywood films. A gripping adventure story, SHANTARAM is also a superbly written meditation on good and evil and an authentic evocation of Bombay life.

ISBN 0349117543   Pages 944 ISBN13 9780349117546 (What's this?)   Weight (grammes) 685 Publisher Little, Brown Book Group   Published in London Imprint Abacus   Height (mm) 196 Format Paperback   Width (mm) 129 Publication date 24 Mar 2005   Spine width (mm) 47 DEWEY 823.92   Academic level General DEWEY edition DC22

A literary masterpiece ... at once erudite and intimate, reflective and funny ... it has the grit and pace of a thriller DAILY TELEGRAPH Powerful and original ... a remarkable achievement SUNDAY TELEGRAPH Extraordinarily vivid ... a gigantic, jaw-dropping, grittily authentic saga DAILY MAIL A publishing phenomenon SUNDAY TIMES

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