Aravind Adiga

The White Tiger

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Balram, an Indian entrepreneur and self-professed murderer, writes middle-of-the-night letters to a visiting Chinese dignitary to tell him the real story of life in India. His tale is morally questionable, but, if taken as allegory, the novel not only is more palatable but also makes important statements about class and caste, wealth and poverty, government and power. Balram’s anecdotes are brutal and incisive. They contain the seeds of radical social upheaval. Similar to the protagonist in Ellison’s Invisible Man, Balram’s character is emblematic of all those  in his circumstance. The protagonists in both these novels wander city streets, gain new levels of understanding about their societies, and finally sequester themselves. More importantly, both find ways to secretly siphon power from the system, metaphorically and actually, waiting until it’s their time to rise …​