BootsnAll Travel Community

Has anyone else read this? What did you think?

Shantaram is a novelisation of Greg Roberts’s experiences while hiding out in India for years after escaping from a maximum security prison in Australia. His experiences themselves are amazing; living in a Bombay slum and working as its ‘doctor’, hooking up with the underworld dons and working as a gangster, being nearly beaten to death in prison, fighting as a mercenary in Afghanistan… Apart for all this action and adventure, the heart of the book is Roberts’s own love of language, India, and his own meditations on crime and punishment, love and loneliness, and his desire to be a good man for himself and the woman he loves. At over 900 pages he gives himself plenty of room to do all this and more. You do get a very strong sense of India, particularly Bombay, and of the people he met. His characters include a lot of locals (he stayed six months in a village and was ‘employed’ in the mafia) and some of the kind of travellers who come to India and only ever leave in a body bag. His experiences are incredible - after reading it hardened India vets are likely to feel like relative novices. You don’t get to met many people with this kind of story, simply because most of them don’t live to tell the tale.

It’s a great read for India fans. His style is intimate, conversational, and will pull you through the many pages, assuming you can fit it in your backpack.

It was originally released by a small publisher in Australia, but surprised everyone by becoming a best seller. He’s now got deals with international publishers. Has anyone outside of Australia heard of him? Look out for this book if it gets a release in your place

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Check out my novel, The Highway, which is set in India.
www.willmarks.com
International order available now (only $10 US incl. international postage) at www.vedamsbooks.com