MICHAEL PORTILLO ON THE BOOKER

LIONS, TIGERS AND GIRAFFES | October 22nd 2008

Want to win the Man Booker Prize? Then concentrate a little more on the way you end your novel (and stay clear of implausible coincidences), explains Michael Portillo, who headed up this year's panel ...

From ECONOMIST.COM

Baby-faced Aravind Adiga took home the 40th Man Booker prize last week for his debut novel, "The White Tiger". Heralded as "the Charles Dickens of the call-centre generation" in The Economist, Adiga has written a colourful book about India's class struggle, told from the disturbing perspective of a chauffeur in Delhi. "I will never be the same having read the White Tiger", says Michael Portillo, chairman of this year's panel of judges, in an interview with The Economist's Books and Arts editor. He goes on to explain how the book beat out Sebastian Barry's "The Secret Scripture" (admired here in The Economist), and to praise the state of contemporary fiction. He also gives a shout-out to his optometrist.

Listen to the interview here.