In 1978 Gregory David Roberts committed a series of robberies while adducted to heroin and was sentenced to nineteen years in prison. After two years he escaped from a maximum-security prison in broad daylight and became Australia s most wanted man. Hiding in Mumbai he established a medical clinic for slum-dwellers and worked as a counterfeiter smuggler and gunrunner for one of the most charismatic branches of the Mumbai mafia. Shantaram based on this ten-year period of Gregory David Roberts life is a superbly written and gripping novel and an authentic evocation of Mumbai life.