How long is it?
304 pages in the Free Press 2008 paperback edition.
Fiction · Novel · Literary Fiction · Literary fiction
The White Tiger
Highly regardedBooker Prize, 2008Reading facts
✓ Checked- Reading effort
- 47 / 100Moderate
- Length
- 304 pagesFree Press · 2008
- Reading time
- 6 hat 50 pages an hour ·
- Pace
- Brisk
- Emotional intensity
- 4 / 5
About 6 h · at 30 minutes a day, about 13 days
Estimated from the page count of this edition. Dense books can take longer than the estimate.
About the book
Writing from Bangalore to the Chinese premier, Balram Halwai explains how a village boy born into poverty became a businessman in contemporary India. His account returns to his years driving for a wealthy family in Delhi, observing the money, connections, and corruption that sustain their position. He wants their freedom, but his family depends on his wages, and obligations to home bind him even in the city.
Reader notes
Boastful, sarcastic, and darkly funny, Balram tells his story through nighttime letters, interrupting his recollections with opinions and arguments. The literary satire is angry and frequently coarse, with violence and degrading abuse beneath its comedy; its account of ambition offers little comfort about the relationship between wealth and virtue.
How it reads
- Writing style
- Conversational · Direct · Essayistic · Witty
- Tone
- Cerebral · Dark · Irreverent · Satirical
- Structure
- Framed · Nonlinear
- Driven by
- Character · Ideas · Voice
- Point of view
- Epistolary · First person
- Setting
- Bangalore · Delhi · India
Reading complexity
- Writing
- 3 / 5
- Ideas
- 4 / 5
- Structure
- 3 / 5
- Background knowledge
- 2 / 5
About this profile
Collected’s assessment, not reader ratings. Complexity runs from 1 (least demanding) to 5 (most demanding).
- Writing
- How much attention the sentences and language require.
- Ideas
- How much interpretation or abstract reasoning the book asks of you.
- Structure
- How much you need to keep track of speakers, timelines and connections.
- Background knowledge
- Prior knowledge needed to follow the book, beyond what it explains.
- Emotional intensity
- Emotional pressure, from gentle (1) to intense (5). Separate from difficulty.
Themes
- Ambition
- Class
- Freedom
- Inequality
- Morality
- Oppression
Content notes
- Violence
- Strong
- Sexual content
- Mild
- Swearing
- Strong
- Substance use
- Mild
- Abuse
- Strong
- Self-harm or suicide
- None
Standing and awards
Highly regarded
- Booker Prize, 2008
Questions readers ask
Which edition is shown here?
Free Press · 2008 · Paperback. ISBN 9781416562603.
How long does it take to read The White Tiger?
About 6 hours at 50 pages an hour, based on the 304-page Free Press edition. Dense books can take longer.
About the author
Aravind Adiga
Aravind Adiga is an Indian-born Australian novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. He began his journalism career as an intern at the Financial Times and later became a freelance writer in Mumbai. In The White Tiger, he uses direct address, dark comedy, and satire to shape Balram Halwai’s account of his rise from rural poverty and domestic service to entrepreneurial success, a story marked by coercion and moral compromise. His fiction also varies in form and setting: Between the Assassinations is a collection of stories set in a fictional coastal town in India, while Amnesty centers on an undocumented Sri Lankan immigrant living in Australia. Together, these works show a writer moving between the concentrated voice of a novel, the broader canvas of a linked setting, and stories rooted in different national contexts.
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Edition and details
- Publisher
- Free Press
- Publication year
- 2008
- Format
- Paperback
- Pages
- 304
- ISBN
- 9781416562603
- Edition language
- English
- Original language
- English
- First published
- 2008
- Genres and form
- Fiction · Novel · Literary Fiction · Literary fiction · Contemporary literary · Social novel · Dark comedy · Picaresque · Satire
- Editions
- 15
- Languages
- 3 (German, English, Unspecified)