Between the Assassinations  (English, Paperback, Adiga Aravind)

Spanning the period between two important events in history, Between The Assassinations is a novel about various characters divided by the faultlines of class and caste.

Summary Of The Book

Between The Assassinations is a collection of fourteen interlinked stories set in Kittur, a fictional coastal town between Calicut and Goa. The book covers a wide economic and social spectrum, with the characters picked from various walks of life. The stories are set in the milieu beginning with the assassination of former Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1984, and ending with the assassination of her son, Rajiv Gandhi in 1991, incidentally also a former Prime Minister.

The book is written in a topographical travel guide style with detailed descriptions that convince the reader of the physical reality of Kittur. Moreover, names like Hotel Decent, Ideal Stores, the Dawn Herald and Angel Talkies help the reader identify with the characters and their lives. Adiga intricately weaves the lives of diverse marginalized characters into a mosaic of Indian life that would help the readers better understand the world they live in today.

Some of the stories in the Between The Assassinations are that of a twelve year old boy, Ziauddin, who works as a tea boy in the railway station and is drawn towards terrorism, a little girl who yearns for her father’s love and goes to the extreme of begging to fund his drug habit, a mosquito repellent sprayer, George D’Souza, who works his way to becoming a gardener and then a chauffeur for the lovely, Mrs. Gomes, and a factory owner who has to choose between digging into the underworld economics or shutting down his factory.

The book cuts across caste, class, religion and occupation, and presents a moral biography of Indian life in the seven years between the titular milestones.The stories and lives of the characters have been keenly observed, and elucidated in fine detail. The end result is a bold perspective into the heart and soul of Indian life.

About Aravind Adiga

Aravind Adiga is well known Indian journalist and writer. His other published novels are The White Tiger and Last Man In Tower.

Aravind was born in Chennai, India in 1874. He grew in Mangalore where he attended Canara High School and later St. Aloysius High School. He then emigrated to Australia along with his family, where he joined James Ruse Agricultural High School. He also went to Columbia University, New York, and Magdalen College, Oxford. Aravind began his career as an intern at the Financial Times as a financial journalist. He was later hired by TIME magazine, where he served for three years as a South Asia correspondent, following which he became a freelance journalist. Aravind’s debut novel The White Tiger won the 2008 Man Booker Prize. He currently resides in Mumbai, India.