Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - Book recommendation

tuffrr · 02-01-2004, 07:16 PM

I've just finished this book by Gregory David Roberts and have to say that this would be probably the best book i have read.

The story is based on the authors own life beginning from when he broke out of prison in Australia and fled to Bombay.

Below is taken from th blurb....

Shantaram is a novel based on the life of the author, Gregory David Roberts. In 1978 Roberts committed a series of robberies while addicted to heroin, and was sentenced to nineteen years’ imprisonment. In July 1980 he escaped over the front wall of Victoria’s maximum-security prison, in broad daylight, thereby becoming one of Australia’s most wanted men for what turned out to be the next ten years.

His journey took him to New Zealand, Asia, Africa, and Europe, but his home for most of those years was Bombay — where he established a free medical clinic for slum-dwellers, and worked as a counterfeiter, smuggler, gunrunner, and street soldier for one of the most charismatic branches of the Bombay mafia.

Shantaram deals with all this, and more. It is an epic, mesmerising tale of crowded slums and five-star hotels, romantic love and prison torture, mafia gang wars and Bollywood films, and spiritual gurus and brutal battlefields. It weaves a seamless web of unforgettable characters, amazing adventures, and superb evocations of Indian life.

02-01-2004, 07:16 PM	#1 (permalink)
tuffrr Registered User Location: On the internet	Book recommendation - Shantaram I've just finished this book by Gregory David Roberts and have to say that this would be probably the best book i have read. The story is based on the authors own life beginning from when he broke out of prison in Australia and fled to Bombay. Below is taken from th blurb.... Shantaram is a novel based on the life of the author, Gregory David Roberts. In 1978 Roberts committed a series of robberies while addicted to heroin, and was sentenced to nineteen years’ imprisonment. In July 1980 he escaped over the front wall of Victoria’s maximum-security prison, in broad daylight, thereby becoming one of Australia’s most wanted men for what turned out to be the next ten years. His journey took him to New Zealand, Asia, Africa, and Europe, but his home for most of those years was Bombay — where he established a free medical clinic for slum-dwellers, and worked as a counterfeiter, smuggler, gunrunner, and street soldier for one of the most charismatic branches of the Bombay mafia. Shantaram deals with all this, and more. It is an epic, mesmerising tale of crowded slums and five-star hotels, romantic love and prison torture, mafia gang wars and Bollywood films, and spiritual gurus and brutal battlefields. It weaves a seamless web of unforgettable characters, amazing adventures, and superb evocations of Indian life.