We present to the reader one of the most amazing novels of the early 21st century. This confession, refracted in artistic form, of a man who managed to get out of the abyss and survive, rammed all the bestseller lists and earned enthusiastic comparisons with the works of the best writers of the modern era, from Melville to Hemingway. Like the author, the hero of this novel hid from the law for many years. Deprived of parental rights after his divorce from his wife, he became addicted to drugs, committed a number of robberies and was sentenced by an Australian court to nineteen years in prison. Escaping from a maximum security prison for the second year, he made it to Bombay, where he was a counterfeiter and smuggler, sold weapons and participated in showdowns of the Indian mafia, and also found his true love, only to lose her again, only to find again... “Man, whom "Shantaram" will not touch to the depths of his soul, or has no heart, or is dead, or both. I haven't read anything with such pleasure for many years. "Shantaram" is the "Thousand and One Nights" of our century. This is a priceless gift for anyone who loves to read." - Jonathan Carroll "Shantaram captivated me from the very first line. This is a stunning, moving, strange, magnificent book, as vast as the ocean." - Detroit Free Press "The amazing thing is that after everything Roberts experienced, he was able to write anything at all. He managed to get out of the abyss and survive... His salvation was his love for people... Real literature can change a person's life. We must be able to empathize and forgive. Forgiveness is a guiding light in the darkness." -Dayton Daily News "'Shantaram' is absolutely unique, bold and fierce. It takes the wildest imagination by surprise.” — Elle “This is a fascinating, compelling, multi-faceted story told in a beautifully crafted voice. Like a shaman - a ghost catcher, Gregory David Roberts managed to capture the very spirit of the works of Henri Charrière, Tom Wolfe and Mario Vargas Llosa, fuse it all together with the power of his magic and create a unique monument of literature." - Moses Isegawa "A masterfully written finished film script in the form of a novel, where real people are depicted under fictitious names... He reveals to us an India that few people know" - Kirkus Review "Perhaps one of the best books I have ever read in my life, it is so captivating and surprising while reading that it’s wow !!! I learned so many new things about India.” — WildCall “I finished reading it about a couple of minutes ago. This is one of the coolest books, it is filled with a huge range of emotions. You read and experience every moment, and then you remember that this is all based on real events and your experience turns from an ordinary emotion into an emotional nuclear bomb. The book is very cool, I’m glad I didn’t abandon it...,” WildCall

Volume: 608 pages (volume 1) + 480 pages (volume 2).

About the Author:

Gregory David Roberts Australia, date of birth: 1952. The fate of this writer, born in Melbourne, Australia, is extremely difficult: after an unsuccessful marriage and the loss of custody of his daughter, he acquired a heroin addiction and fell to the very bottom rung of the social ladder. To provide himself with drugs, Roberts boldly committed crimes, mainly engaging in robbery, receiving the nickname “Gentleman Criminal.” This led to the fact that in 1990, while attempting to import heroin into the country, Roberts was detained in Frankfurt and extradited to his native Australia, where he spent the next 6 years of his life in prison, 2 years in solitary confinement. It was during his time behind bars that Roberts began work on his most famous novel, Shantaram, which was twice destroyed by prison guards. Roberts himself claims that it was going to prison that put him on the path to salvation, and the title of the novel means “Peaceful Man” - a nickname that the author received in early childhood. After his release from prison, Roberts seriously took up his writing career, moving to live in the Indian city of Mumbai, where he headed the Hope for India charitable foundation, organized to care for and help the poor.