Literary Birthday – 23 October – Aravind Adiga

Happy Birthday, Aravind Adiga, born 23 October 1974.

Seven Quotes

1. It has always been very difficult for writers to survive commercially in India because the market was so small. But that’s not true at all any more. It’s one of the world’s fastest growing and most vibrant markets for books, especially in English.
2. Like most people who live in India, I complain about corruption, but know that I can live with corrupt men. It is the honest ones I secretly worry about.
3. Like most of my friends in school, I was a member of multiple circulating libraries; and all of us, to begin with, borrowed and read the same things.
4. There is a hunger among readers in India to be told other stories, to read challenging, even confrontational/disturbing stories; but this hunger is not being satisfied by our literati here.
5. The only thing unusual about my writing days is how conventional they are. I get up at 6 a.m.; it’s pretty much the same as when I used to get up to go to work, except I’m now working at home. I do most of my writing in the morning and late at night.
6. There is no secret to writing. It’s discipline and sticking to it.
7. You hope as a writer to speak most clearly and directly to the people in your own community, but to be read by people in other countries as well.

Aravind Adiga is an Indian writer and journalist. His debut novel, The White Tiger, won the 2008 Man Booker Prize. Other books include  Last Man in Tower, and Between the Assassinations.

See image of author here

by Amanda Patterson

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