Adiga Wins Booker
By Rachel Deahl -- Publishers Weekly, 10/15/2008 1:53:00 AM
Aravind Adiga has won the 2008 Man Booker prize for his debut novel, White Tiger. The book, which is the fourth debut to win the preeminent English lit award (after The Bone People in 1985, The God of Small Things in 1997 and Vernon God Little in 2003), is published by Atlantic in the U.K. and Free Press in the U.S. The win marks a first for Atlantic and drew cheers during the Tuesday night party hosted by Hachette at the Frankfrut Book Fair. The announcement, broadcast live on the BBC, was preceded by an uncharacteristic silence at the party where the five other nominees—Sebastian Barry, Linda Grant, Amitav Ghosh, Philip Hensher and Steve Toltz—also drew applause from the international crowd.Free Press's $14 trade paperback just went on sale yesterday and currently has 40,000 copies in print. The house is going back for "at least another 125,000 copies," said assistant director of publicity Jill Siegel. Speaking from Frankfurt, publisher Martha Levin commented, "We believed from our first reading of this book that it was a singular work and we published it with that in mind. We're delighted that the Booker will give it a wider readership."
White Tiger, which is set in India and follows a driver who murders his wealthy boss, is the fifth novel by an Indian author to win the Booker. The book's American editor, Amber Qureshi, is profiled in next week's PW.
