Synopses & Reviews
Vikas Swarup's spectacular debut novel opens in a jail cell in Mumbai, India, where Ram Mohammad Thomas is being held after correctly answering all twelve questions on India's biggest quiz show,
Who Will Win a Billion? It is hard to believe that a poor orphan who has never read a newspaper or gone to school could win such a contest. But through a series of exhilarating tales Ram explains to his lawyer how episodes in his life gave him the answer to each question.
Ram takes us on an amazing review of his own history -- from the day he was found as a baby in the clothes donation box of a Delhi church to his employment by a faded Bollywood star to his adventure with a security-crazed Australian army colonel to his career as an overly creative tour guide at the Taj Mahal.
Swarup's Q & A is a beguiling blend of high comedy, drama, and romance that reveals how we know what we know -- not just about trivia, but about life itself. Cutting across humanity in all its squalor and glory, Vikas Swarup presents a kaleidoscopic vision of the struggle between good and evil -- and what happens when one boy has no other choice in life but to survive.
Review
"It was an inspired idea by Vikas Swarup to write
Q & A...A broad and sympathetic humanity underpins the whole book."
-- The Sunday Telegraph, London
Review
"Vikas Swarup weaves a delightful yarn. With an easy style,
Q & A is sweet, sorrowful and funny. An enchanting tale."
-- The Sunday Tribune, India
Review
"This page-turning novel reels from farce to melodrama to fairy tale."
-- You Magazine, London
Review
"A very clever story told very cleverly and at a relentless pace."
-- The Sydney Morning Herald, Australia
Review
"Swarup is an accomplished storyteller, and
Q & A has all the immediacy and impact of an oral account."
-- Daily Mail, London
Review
"[A] rare, seemingly effortless brew of humour, drama, romance and social realism...Swarup...has achieved a triumph with this thrilling, endearing work which gets into the heart and soul of modern India."
-- The New Zealand Herald
Review
"
Q & A is that rare novel that chugs along on the parallel tracks of being a rollicking read as well as being a polished, varnished, finished work of impressive craftsmanship."
-- Hindustan Times, India
Synopsis
Vikas Swarup's page-turning novel about an impoverished Indian waiter who stuns the world by correctly answering all twelve questions on a television quiz show.
Now with movie-tie-in art, Slumdog Millionaire is a beautifully written, clever novel and "readers will consider themselves winners after spending time in the world of this very rich tale" (The Washington Post Book World). A beguiling blend of high comedy and poignancy, Vikas Swarup has created a kaleidoscopic vision of modern India, the struggle of good against evil, and what happens when one boy has no other choice in life but to survive.
Directed by Danny Boyle (Trainspotting, A Life Less Ordinary, and 28 Days Later) and distributed by Fox Searchlight Pictures--the indie studio that made Little Miss Sunshine a hit--Slumdog Millionaire is taking the festival circuit by storm. In its coverage of the Telluride Film Festival, Variety said, "the runaway smash was Danny Boyle's exhilarating, madly entertaining drama Slumdog Millionaire." The Wall Street Journal film critic Joe Morgenstern said the film "takes us to a level that tops the Rockies for heightened experience. An amalgam of Oliver Twist, The Three Musketeers, and Bollywood extravaganza...there's never been anything like this densely detailed phantasmagoria--groundbreaking in substance, damned near earth-shaking in style."
About the Author
Vikas Swarup is an Indian diplomat who has served in Turkey, the United States, Ethiopia, and Great Britain. Q & A, his first novel, is being translated into eighteen languages and is due to be made into a film. Swarup currently works in the Ministry of External Affairs in New Delhi.