This marks a significant site of disjuncture between Indian novels in English and in regional literatures.
Meenakshi Mukherjee in The Perishable Empire judiciously points out that “one implicit expectation from Third World cosmopolitan writers (also known as postcolonials) is that they will highlight the experience of colonialism as theme or metaphor” (179). In order to position The White Tiger with respect to the Indian postcolonial novel, I would like to focus on the question of reader expectations and how this appears to have shaped literary production in India. What is possible, however, is to critically appreciate the resurgences of postcolonial themes in the neocolonial context of the novel. It is perhaps too early to judge Adiga’s place in Indian fiction. Does it represent a turning-point in Indian fiction in English as some reviewers seem to suggest? Or can we discern both breaks and bridges between The White Tiger and other works of the modern Indian literary postcolonial pantheon which may prompt reflections of a more general nature on the production and reception of Indian fiction at home and abroad?ģ Before I proceed, a brief disclaimer is in order.
It is this sense of rupture, of departure from the project of Indian writing in English that I would like to explore in this paper by attempting to tentatively situate Adiga’s novel with respect to Indian postcolonial fiction in English.
Pierre in the past, still fumed: Why had a novice like Adiga and not a literary stalwart like Amitav Ghosh been chosen? Did this reflect a trend of “giving prizes to ‘accessible’ books” 1 ? Admirers of the novel, on the other hand, celebrated its stinging critique of contemporary India: “until Adiga, India Unlit had not really found a voice in the babel of India Shining” (Kanjilal).Ģ What is of interest is not the divergence of opinions concerning the judiciousness of awarding the prize to Adiga, but the underlying consensus that Adiga’s novel represents something different, which does not conform to expectations of readers, at least in India, vis-à-vis the Indian novel in English. Detractors of the novel, though aware that the prize had been awarded to débutant writers such as Arundhati Roy and D.B.C. Having received little critical attention in India prior to being shortlisted for the Booker, the fact that it outpaced its contenders including The Sea of Poppies, a novel by fellow Indian writer, Amitav Ghosh, perhaps accounts for the mixed reactions it received in India. 1 Ravi Singh, Editor-in-chief of Penguin India, which had initially declined to publish The White Tig (.)ġ At the risk of mixing animal metaphors, it may be said that Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger was the proverbial “black horse” in the Man Booker Prize shortlist for 2008.
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