Mountain Shadow, the sequel to Shantaram picks up on the events of the earlier novel two years later. Roberts brings out these contrasting cultures in exceptional detail teaching the readers a great deal about life in these societies. He however discovers a much more complicated and dangerous culture than he had left back home. The struggles of Lin, raised Australian, when he goes to India sum the contrasting cultural intricacies of western and eastern societies.

Shantaram is as much a crime story as it is an educative pamphlet on cultural identity. On his trail are not only police but every sadistic scumbag looking to score a reward for turning him in. Soon his identity is discovered and a warrant for his extradition adds one more worry to his long list of woes. Karla’s beauty and bad girl charm consume Lin, and his pursuit for her put him in conflict with every criminal element hiding out in Bombay’s ruthless underbelly. Two people hold the key to solving the problems that bedevil Lin: Khader Khan who is the mafia godfather and former mentor and Karla, a stunningly beauty but dangerous criminal operative whose secrets haunt her and afford her devastating power at the same time. It is not a world easily left behind, and Lin soon finds himself entangled in a web of deceit and murder. The lonely fugitive, looking for a meaningful attachment and turnaround from crime, starts running a clinic in a poor Bombay neighborhood though he is still engaged with the Bombay mafia.

Accompanied by Prabaker, his friend and guide, Lin joins the Bombay underground where crime, murders, prostitution and vagrancy abides in no mean proportion. The story is narrated by Lin, an escaped prisoner who has fled to Bombay, India using a fake passport. Shantaram is essentially a pseudo-autobiography which narrates Roberts’s former life as a criminal and drug addict, with significant exaggeration to the actual events. The book was extremely well received and Roberts sold the rights for a potential film for $2 million.

He published his first novel “Shantaram” after leaving prison. After evading capture for ten years he was rearrested on a drug trafficking run in Frankfurt in 1990, spending a further 6 years in prison. In order to finance his drug habit, Roberts turned to crime and was sentenced to 19 years for bank robbery but he made a famous day time escape from Pentridge Prison after serving just two years. Roberts became a heroin addict leading to a strain in his marriage that ended in divorce and the loss of custody of his daughter. Roberts, born in June 1952, overcame a debilitating heroin addiction and crime life to engineer a successful writing career that is to a large extent a chronicle of his earlier struggles. Gregory David Roberts is an Australian writer who is best known for the novel Shantaram.

Author gregory david roberts