Shantaram

I’ve spent a few years traveling around India and Nepal, a lot of it, pre-internet, and I always wanted to find that experience captured in literature.

Although I enjoyed writing on the area, from City of Joy by Lapierre to Kim by Kipling, nothing came close to the India I stumbled through until I read Shantaram.

I was never hooked on heroin or part of the mafia, but I recognized the smell of the streets and the beautiful personalities that flourished there, and when I read that book, it was like I was there again, in the mix.

This is a grand adventure of a novel that, like India itself, contains pretty much everything.

A compelling tale of a man who escaped from prison and tried to lose himself in the vastness of India, beautifully rendered here in all its sensory splendor and squalor. Lin does lose himself, and in the process, it’s how he finds himself.

This is very much a story of how the inner reflects the outer and vice versa, it is a love story between a man and a woman, a man and a culture, and a man and himself, as Lin re-learns to… show more.

An autobiographical novel about drug addiction, robbery, imprisonment, escape, and personal transformation.

This book gave me confidence that I didn’t need to be defined by my previous misdeeds. That I could choose to be a better person and make a positive contribution to others. That my crimes could serve as motivation to do better in future, rather than an enduring and insurmountable judgment against me.

I met Gregory David Roberts when we were both reading at a literary festival in Mumbai, or Bombay, where much of this epic novel is set. I loved getting to know the main character (based on Roberts), Australia’s “most wanted man,” as he finds his new place in the world, in India. Vivid descriptions breathe life into characters and settings. They make the hero come alive, too, and help him reinvent himself – several times. This reflects the diversity of life in India. Epic in every sense.

I have never read a book like this. On one level I was disgusted by the main character’s actions and appalled by some outcomes. The author slams me against the wall peeling my eyes open to the judgment I pass on humanity every day. I loved the main character and yet I judged him for being human. We all have our downfalls, but what if we can rise above them? This is a true story, and it is a remarkable achievement. Simple happiness is not found in the wealth of riches. It is found in the wealth of friendship and… show more.

Talk about inspirational. Not only is Shantaram exquisite for its intensity, human connection, and transformation, but the story behind the book is just as stunning. While doing time in an Australian prison for armed robbery, Roberts had the manuscript destroyed by a guard when he was 400 pages into writing it. So what did he do? He began again. And it was destroyed once more. And he began a third time, completing the daunting task of writing a 933-page novel. 

As a writer, I know how it feels to lose even one page of something I’ve been working on, so… show more.

If I were consigned to a deserted island and could choose only one book to bring with me, it would be Shantaram. This is so much more than a fictionalized memoir; it is an epic journey, an exploration of the heart, a pilgrimage of the soul, and a treatise on the human spirit. The writing is flawless, with phrases exquisitely wrought, more poetry than prose. Deeply powerful and moving, this novel epitomizes the essence of humanity in all its triumphs and tragedies.