Aravind Adiga is being touted as the next big writer out of India, his debut novel The Whie Tiger creating quite some buzz at the London Book Fair last year and then sparking a bidding war for international rights.

This is in itself is not unusual; Indian fiction is a lucrative and popular genre. What is different about Adiga’s book is that instead of writing about the India of the Light – saris, spice, spirituality and palaces at sunset, with some choice poverty thrown in – Adiga chooses to tackle the India of the Dark, where the poor are exploited, overworked by harsh masters and then discarded with, left to die like animals.

Told through the voice of Balram Halwai, the son of a rickshaw puller, now an entrepreneur in Bangalore, and the White Tiger of the title (only one comes along every generation), the novel takes the form of a letter written over seven days to the Chinese premier, Wen Jiabao, on the eve of his visit to India, in Balram’s belief that ‘the future of the world lies with the yellow man and the brown man’.

Wry, confronting and blackly humourous, this is a must-read for Indians and Indophiles alike.