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Slumdog Millionaire tops holiday reads
Slumdog Millionaire tops the list of holiday books, with the BBC's Robert Peston coming second with a tale of financial woe
by: Steve Myall 9 June 2009
BOLLYWOOD story Slumdog Millionaire has been picked as the holiday read of the summer by airport travellers.
The tale of a young boy’s rise from the Indian slums to national fame by Vikas Swarup is likely to be filling the most suitcases, says a new report.
The list of the nation’s top holiday reads has been compiled by Heathrow Airport and is dominated by big screen adaptations.
Three of the top five most popular books were recently made into big screen blockbusters, including Slumdog which swept the board at the Oscars with eight awards and which stars Londoner Dev Patel.
But for some people even a holiday is not enough to get their minds off the economic crisis and 11 per cent voted BBC journalist Robert Peston's financial analysis of Britain, Who Runs Britain?, into second place.
However Swarup's tale of how an 18-year-old boy from the slums manages to win 20 million rupees on a television game show was named the top holiday read by 14 per cent of travellers.
Also in the top ten were the book of the Kate Winslet film The Reader which follows a character named Michael Berg and charts his relationship with an older woman named Hanna in the context of the Holocaust.
The White Tiger from Aravind Adiga, which won the 2008 Man Booker Prize and charts the story of Balram Halwai, an overweight ex-teashop worker who now earns his living as a chauffeur, also made it into the list.
Nick Adderley, Heathrow Airport marketing and insight director, said: “There is a distinct Hollywood feel to this year's top fictional reads and the fact that 14 per cent of all holidaymakers will be packing a copy of Slumdog Millionaire in their suitcases shows just how much a movie's box-office success can push a book up the literary league table.
“In the non-fiction stakes it looks like there will be little escape from the economic woes with one in ten travellers voting Robert Peston's analysis of the state of Britain their top holiday read.”
Find the article at: http://www.thelondonpaper.com/staying-in/books/slumdog-millionaire-tops-holiday-reads
Six Suspects to be made into a film
LONDON May 24, 2009- A British film producer is relishing the chance to adapt ‘Slumdog Millionare’ author Vikas Swarup’s second book into a movie.
Paul Raphael is said to have joined forces with BBC Films and ‘Trainspotting’ screenwriter John Hodge to make a film based on ‘Six Suspects’, billed as a “Agatha Christie meets Elmore Leonard” murder mystery set in Delhi.
The rights to make a film on Six Suspects is being seen as a compensation for Raphael because he had also tried to obtain rights to make a film on Slumdog Millionare, but discovered that they had already gone.
He was given an exclusive peek at Swarup’s second novel and optioned it last year, several months before Slumdog was released and became a box office phenomenon.
Hollywood studios anxious to join the project are now said to have swamped Raphael with calls.
“The success of Slumdog has transformed interest in the project,” the Daly Express quoted Raphael as telling from the Cannes Film Festival.
“I’m very lucky to have a property that can benefit from the reality of the way films get made and marketed these days,” he added.
Describing the plot, Raphael said: “I read about a hundred pages and just knew that I wanted to do it. It’s a great whodunnit in a very unusual setting.”
He further said that just like Slumdog, the second book also offered a kaleidoscopic portrait of modern India.
He said that it is about a murdered playboy and the six suspects who all had reason to kill him, including a Bollywood actress, a mobile phone salesman and an illiterate boy.
“It has a lot to say about modern India. All the suspects are from completely different walks of life. It’s very original and has a distinct voice and sense of humour and John Hodge will bring something amazing to it,” said Raphael.
The 10million-pound Six Suspects goes into production next year. (ANI)
Slumdog scoops travel award Victoria Gallagher
Slumdog Millionaire by Vikas Swarup (Transworld) and Body Language by James Borg (Prentice Hall Life) have been named as the best travel reads in the first annual Heathrow Travel Product Awards. Over the past four weeks, more than 23,000 votes have been cast for the 12 categories via the Heathrow Travel Product Awards website.
Following in the steps of its Oscar success, Swarup's title won the best travel read for fiction. The Reader by Bernhard Schlink (Phoenix) came in second and The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson (Quercus) was third in the online voting.
The winners will be presented with their awards at Heathrow later this month and will be able to feature the Heathrow Travel Product Awards' logo on packaging and in advertising.
BAA marketing and insight director Nick Adderley said: "Voted for by the general public, the Heathrow Travel Product Awards celebrate the great and the good of travel accessories—from the essential to the indulgent.
Q&A Most Influential Book in Taiwan
Q&A chosen as "The Most Influential Book of the Year 2008" by the Kingstone Bookstore in Taiwan, the biggest chainstore throughout Taiwan. Previous winners have included Life of Pi, Harry Potter and Marley & Me.
India wins at 2009 Oscar ceremony as Slumdog Millionaire grabs 8 Oscars February 23, 2009
Some may call it Slumdog Millionaire's night but actually it turned out to be a celebration of India at the 81st Oscar ceremony. The real winner is Mumbai, said film director Danny Boyle. Almost the whole cast and crew of 'Slumdog Millionaire' including its child actors from Mumbai headed for the stage as the legendary filmmaker Steven Spielberg announced the Oscar for Best Picture. Earlier, Slumdog Millionaire won two Oscars for India's most popular composer, AR Rahman.
In total Slumdog Millionaire won eight Oscars of the night, including Best Picture and Best Director.
A R Rahman won two Oscars, one each for the Best Original Soundtrack score and the Best Song categories. This a first for any Indian composer. His hometown Chennai, formerly, Madras, reupted into ecstacy as Rahman's name was announced.
Resul Pookutty of India won the gold statue along with Ian Tapp and Richard Pryke for best sound mixing of Slumdog Millionaire. Again, another first for any Indian in this category. In fact, the only Oscar winners from India, till date, were Bhanu Athaiyya (for film Gandhi's costume) and filmmaker Satyajit Ray (Life achievement) British scriptwriter Simon Beaufoy fetched the Oscar in the Best Adapted Screenplay category for the film, based on Indian diplomat Vikas Swarup's novel "Q and A".
"It is a tremendous honour. I thank Vikas Swarup, without him Slumdog would not have happened, thanks Vikas Swarup," said Beaufoy while accepting the golden statuette.
Author behind 'Slumdog Millionaire' heads home for Indian premiere
Fri Jan 16, 4:50 PM By Celean Jacobson, The Associated Press
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - The diplomat-novelist whose work was the basis of the award-winning film "Slumdog Millionaire" is heading home to India for the premiere of the movie there.
The film, about a young boy from the slums of Mumbai who wins a fortune in a television game show, walked away with the Golden Globe best picture award and best director for Briton Danny Boyle earlier this week.
Vikas Swarup, whose novel "Q&A" the movie is based on, said in an interview Friday that Indians feel "a sense of ownership" about the film - a third of which is in Hindi. Swarup was leaving South Africa on Saturday to attend the Mumbai premiere on Jan. 22, the same day the Oscar nominations will be announced.
"Indians are taking it personally," the soft-spoken Swarup said in a telephone interview Friday from Pretoria, where he serves as India's deputy high commissioner.
Swarup's likable hero, whose name, Ram Mohammed Thomas, borrows from each of India's three main religions, is arrested for winning the Indian version of the quiz show "Who Wants to Be A Millionaire" because of disbelief that an uneducated street child could know all the answers.
Each chapter in the funny, poignant and colourfully written first novel explains, by depicting an aspect of Ram's life, how he came by his knowledge.
Changes have been made to the story in the film and Swarup acknowledges that it is it is hard for authors to be "totally happy" with adaptations of their work.
But he said the movie is "visually dazzling and emotionally satisfying" and that the filmmakers kept their promise to keep the "soul" of the book intact.
"My book is about hope and survival," he says, a message that has particular resonance in developing countries such as Swarup's homeland and South Africa, his temporary residence since 2006. "You can triumph over adversity. A beautiful flower can bloom in the dirtiest slum."
However, the film - and the book by extension - has been criticized for its portrayal of India as a place of only desperation and misery.
Swarup said his story is a "slice of Indian life" and he does not see India's slums as a "place of despair."
"They are teeming with vigour, industry, energy - with people trying to improve their lives, trying to break that vicious cycle of poverty," he said.
Swarup's second book, "Six Suspects," a complicated tale of murder and corruption, also has been optioned for a film. The history and philosophy graduate of Allahabad University in India said he does not want to write the kind of epic stories favoured by the masters of Indian literature such V.S. Naipul and Vikram Seth. He prefers to pen popular "fast-paced novels with a conscience."
Swarup said he has been overwhelmed by the response to the film, whose screenplay was written by Simon Beaufoy. But the diplomat turned author admits feeling a bit distant from the film, and its success.
The first time he saw it was in October at the closing gala of the London Film Festival, just before its November release. He was not invited to the Golden Globe awards and he doesn't plan to attend the Oscars if the film is nominated. "I would have liked to be made to feel more part of it," he said. "Because, after all, without my story there would be no 'Slumdog Millionaire."'
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