From "The New Yorker:"
In this darkly comic debut novel (winner of the 2008 Man Booker Prize) set in India, Balram, a chauffeur, murders his employer, justifying his crime as the act of a "social entrepreneur." In a series of letters to the Premier of China... the chauffeur recounts his transformation from an honest, hardworking boy growing up in "the Darkness"... to a determined killer. He places the blame for his rage squarely on the avarice of the Indian elite, among whom bribes are commonplace, and who perpetuate a system in which many are sacrificed to the whims of the few. Adiga's message isn't subtle or novel, but Balram's appealingly sardonic voice and acute observations of the social order are both winning and unsettling.
In this darkly comic debut novel (winner of the 2008 Man Booker Prize) set in India, Balram, a chauffeur, murders his employer, justifying his crime as the act of a "social entrepreneur." In a series of letters to the Premier of China... the chauffeur recounts his transformation from an honest, hardworking boy growing up in "the Darkness"... to a determined killer. He places the blame for his rage squarely on the avarice of the Indian elite, among whom bribes are commonplace, and who perpetuate a system in which many are sacrificed to the whims of the few. Adiga's message isn't subtle or novel, but Balram's appealingly sardonic voice and acute observations of the social order are both winning and unsettling. 
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