miércoles, 28 de abril de 2010

A book you really have to read....or watch.


Q & A by Vikas Swarup, is a picaresque Bombay novel. This wonderfully written book, tells us about the adventures and misfortunes of Rama, who has won a game-show.

The author, born in Allahabad (India), worked as a diplomatic in countries such as Turkey, the United Kingdom, Ethiopia and the United States. Since August 2006 he has been in Pretoria as India's Deputy High Commissioner.

This book has been translated into 33 languages and has won several awards such as Best First Book by the Commonwealth Writers' Prize or Paris Book Fair's Readers' Prize, the Prix Grand Public 2007 and others.

Q&A is about a poor teenager who wins a fantstic sum at a TV program, the Indian version of Who Wants To Be a Millionaire? After that, he is immediately arrested on suspicion of cheating in each answer to the questions of the program. So he relates his life experience, describing the people he has met, his sensations, his thoughts, his feelings, his fears,... Since he was a child until the present.

For example, in one chapter he explains how he knew the answer to the question:"Which is the smallest planet?": he was living in a guesthouse and new tenants arrived, a family with a daughter. The father was an astronomer and he was always speaking about stars, constellations, comets and galaxies while Rama was listening through the wall using a glass. One day, daughter found a cat and the father named it Pluto becuase now the cat was the youngest in the family. So that's why Rama knew the correct answer was Pluto. But Rama fell in love with the girl and to protect her he had to do something horrible.

I highly recommend this book because it is an entretaining novel, full of details from India's life and you will get hooked on it from beginning to end.

No hay comentarios:

Publicar un comentario