Shantaram (novel)

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**Title** **Shantaram**
Cover to the first edition
Author	Gregory David Roberts
Country	Australia
Language	English
Genre(s)	Novel
Publisher	Scribe Publications (Aus)
Released	2003
Media type	Print (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages	936 pp (US hardback edition)
ISBN	ISBN 1-920769-00-5 (Aus hardback edition), ISBN 0-312-33052-9 (US hardback edition) & ISBN 0-316-72725-3 (US paperback edition)

Shantaram is the 2003 novel written by Gregory David Roberts, a convicted Australian bank robber and heroin addict who escaped from Pentridge Prison and fled to India where he lived for 10 years.

1 Plot introduction
2 Plot summary
3 Film, TV or theatrical adaptations
4 External links

[edit] Plot introduction

Shantaram is an uncompromising story of a fugitive - based on Roberts' experience - on the run in Bombay, India; a man who sets up a free clinic in a third world slum, works for the biggest Don in the Bombay Mafia, works as a money launderer and street soldier, heads straight into Russian guns in the mountains of Afghanistan, and earns the name insightfully given him by his best friend's mother - "Shantaram", or man of peace.

[edit] Plot summary

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Shantaram is a novel based on the life of the author, Gregory David Roberts. In 1978 Roberts was sentenced to nineteen years’ imprisonment as punishment for a series of robberies of building-society branches, credit unions, and shops he had committed while addicted to heroin. In July 1980 he escaped from Victoria’s maximum-security prison in broad daylight, thereby becoming one of Australia’s most wanted men for what turned out to be the next ten years.

For most of this period, after an interlude in New Zealand, he lived in Bombay. After meeting a local man named Prabaker, who later becomes his best friend, he sets up a free health clinic in the slums where he learns about the Indian culture and characteristics of the people he later comes to love. He later works for mafia don "Abdel Khader Khan" and works in currency exchange and passport forgery. During this time he also balances responsibilities with his new friends and helping them with their conflicts, and also his old friends whom he met while working in the slums. He later has numerous adventures, including fighting various gangs and entering into the Bollywood business. He later goes to Afghanistan to smuggle weapons for freedom fighters in Afghanistan, where his mentor Khan is killed. He realizes he became everything he grew to loathe and falls into a depressive state (his closest friends, including Prabaker were all dead) after he returns. He ends up realizing that he must fight for what he believes is right, and building an honest life in Bombay.

Spoilers end here.

[edit] Film, TV or theatrical adaptations

Main article: Shantaram (film)

The film rights have recently been sold to Johnny Depp and Warner Bros. are set to produce Shantaram starring Johnny Depp. Warner Bros. hopes to mount production by the beginning of 2007.