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Sign up todayQ & A - Abridged
A Novel
Narrator
Kerry Shale
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Length
6 hours 8 minutes
Language
English
Vikas Swarup's spectacular debut novel opens in a jail cell in Mumbai, India, where Ram Mohammad Thomas is being held after correctly answering all twelve questions on India's biggest quiz show, Who Will Win a Billion? It is hard to believe that a poor orphan who has never read a newspaper or gone to school could win such a contest. But through a series of exhilarating tales Ram explains to his lawyer how episodes in his life gave him the answer to each question.
Ram takes us on an amazing review of his own history—from the day he was found as a baby in the clothes donation box of a Delhi church to his employment by a faded Bollywood star to his adventure with a security-crazed Australian army colonel to his career as an overly creative tour guide at the Taj Mahal.
Swarup's Q & A is a beguiling blend of high comedy, drama, and romance that reveals how we know what we know—not just about trivia, but about life itself. Cutting across humanity in all its squalor and glory, Vikas Swarup presents a kaleidoscopic vision of the struggle between good and evil—and what happens when one boy has no other choice in life but to survive.
Vikas Swarup’s first novel was made into the Oscar Award–winning film Slumdog Millionaire and has been translated into over forty languages. Swarup has written for Time, Newsweek, the Guardian, the Telegraph, and the Financial Times. An Indian diplomat, he has been posted to Turkey, the United States, Ethiopia, the United Kingdom, South Africa, and Japan. He lives in India.
Kerry Shale is a Sony Radio Academy Award winner, a narrator of dozens of audio books, and an actor in films as diverse as Yentl and Welcome to Sarajevo. He won an Audie Award for his narration of Q&A.
Reviews
“Swarup is an accomplished storyteller, and Q & A has all the immediacy and impact of an oral account.”
“Q & A is that rare novel that chugs along on the parallel tracks of being a rollicking read as well as being a polished, varnished, finished work of impressive craftsmanship.”
“It was an inspired idea by Vikas Swarup to write Q & A…A broad and sympathetic humanity underpins the whole book.”
“A very clever story told very cleverly and at a relentless pace.”
“[A] rare, seemingly effortless brew of humor, drama, romance, and social realism…[Swarup] has achieved a triumph with this thrilling, endearing work which gets into the heart and soul of modern India.”
“Vikas Swarup weaves a delightful yarn. With an easy style, Q & A is sweet, sorrowful, and funny. An enchanting tale.”
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