Shantaram
A convicted armed robber and heroin addict escapes a maximum-security Australian prison, buys a false New Zealand passport in the name of Lindsay Ford, and lands in Bombay in the 1980s with nothing planned past the airport. Over the following years, under the name Lin and eventually Shantaram, he lives in a slum and runs a free clinic for his neighbors, joins the local mafia under a Kabul-born don named Khaderbhai, falls in with a Swiss-American woman named Karla whose secrets might be bigger than his, loses friends to prison and to the streets, and is eventually swept into the war in Afghanistan. Gregory David Roberts's 2003 novel, loosely based on his own fugitive years, is a nine-hundred-page first-person tour of Bombay that treats the city itself as the protagonist.
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An Australian heroin addict and bank robber escapes prison and flees to Bombay on a fake passport. He takes the name Lin, opens a free clinic in a slum, falls for a mysterious woman, and joins the local mafia.
Partly. Gregory David Roberts has presented Shantaram as autobiographical fiction based on his life as an Australian armed robber turned escaped convict turned Bombay slum doctor. Some details have been disputed by journalists. The novel is shelved as fiction.
Yes. Apple TV+ released a 2022 series adaptation starring Charlie Hunnam. The show was cancelled after one season.
Shantaram was written by Gregory David Roberts, published in 2004 by St. Martin's Press.
Shantaram is 940 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, Shantaram takes most readers 14 to 20 hours to finish.
Shantaram is a standalone novel by Gregory David Roberts, not part of a series.
Shantaram is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.
