![]() ![]() A gripping adventure story, SHANTARAM is also a superbly written meditation on good and evil and an authentic evocation of Bombay life. The result is an epic tale of slums and five-star hotels, romantic love and prison torture, mafia gang wars and Bollywood films. Despite its fascinating subject matter, and the Roberts best intentions, it is badly let down by flawed conception, over-wrought prose, adolescent politics and excessive length. It is one the least subtle books I have ever read every point is hammered home, every theme over-elaborated. ![]() His debut novel, SHANTARAM, is based on this ten-year period of his life in Bombay. In short, Shantaram is a novel of excess in almost every way. He was recruited by one of the most charismatic branches of the Bombay mafia for whom he worked as a forger, counterfeiter, and smuggler, and fought alongside a unit of mujaheddin guerrilla fighters in Afghanistan. Hiding in Bombay, he established a medical clinic for slum- dwellers, worked in the Bollywood film industry and served time in the notorious Arthur Road prison. After two years, he escaped from a maximum- security prison, spending the next ten years on the run as Australia's most wanted man. Caught and convicted, he was given a nineteen-year sentence. In 1978, gifted student and writer Greg Roberts turned to heroin when his marriage collapsed, feeding his addiction with a string of robberies. ![]()
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