Vikas Swarup

Vikas Swarup was born in 1963,  in a small town which is about 341 km from the Nepalese border. He was born into a family of lawyers and solicitors. As a child Swarup had a dream of becoming a pilot or an astronaut.

He graduated from university with majors in modern history, psychology and philosophy. In 1986 he started to work as a diplomat in the Indian Foreign Ministry. In 2009 he became consul general of Ösaka-Köbe. His wife is a painter and together they have two children. Swarup  loves to play tennis, cricket, table tennis and listening to music.

When Swarup was young his teacher noticed that he was a good at writing stories. Later on in life Swarup has written and published two books. He is the author of the novel Q & A, the story which laterbecame a bestseller and is known as Slumdog Millionaire. Swarup worked long and hard on the novel Q & A. It took him about two years to write the book. He was inspired to write his novel by the education programme “Hole in the Wall”. “Hole in the Wall” is an education programme for poor children who do not have the right or the access to education. Vikas Swarup  wanted to tell the story of a young uneducated Indian man from the Dharavi-ghetto in Mumbai who surprises everybody by answering all questions and winning : “Who wants to be a millionaire”. Q & A was published by Black Swan and translated into more than 36 languages. Swarup received a lot of awards for his book like for example the Paris Book Fair’s Reader´s Prize in 2007. Today he gets invited to a lot of book festivals and writes for several newspapers.

The film Slumdog Millionaire was released in 2008 under the instruction of Danny Boyle. Its screenplay written by Simon Beaufoy, was based on the novel Q & A. The film earned more than 70 awards including 4 Golden Globes, eight Oscars and a prize for the best screenplay and pictures. The film Slumdog Millionaire received a lot of criticism for example that the film is only produced from the  perspective of the Hindus and that the actors from the slums in Mumbai never earned a decent salary. There are also people who say that the film does not show India today and this is also what the Indian population think.

This year Vikas Swarup has published a new book called “The Accidental Apprentice".
 

Sources:
http://www.vikasswarup.net/bio/