English Audio - English Audio Books

Ram Mohammad Thomas has been arrested.

For answering twelve questions correctly on Who Will Win A Billion?

Because a poor orphan who has never gone to school cannot name the smallest planet in the solar system, or the plays of Shakespeare.

Unless he has cheated.

Ram prepares his defence by reviewing TV footage of the show, and takes us on an amazing tour of his life.

From the day he is rescued from a dustbin, to his encounter with a security-crazed Australian colonel, and a spell as an over-creative guide at the Taj Mahal, Ram's survival instincts are infallible.

Stunning an audience of millions, he draws on a store of street wisdom and trivia to provide him with the essential keys, not only to the quiz show, but to life itself.

Read by Kerry Shale, this beautiful award winning audio communicates Vikas' words and narrative to life, allowing the listener to envisage the colour and vibrance of Mumbai and the hard hitting truth of poverty and struggle through the eyes of two young boys and the friends they make along the way.

One of the boys comes through it all, knowledgeable and determined by answering twelve questions correctly on a gameshow.

Now an award winning film !!

The award winning film, 'Slumdog Millionaire' is based on Vikas Swarup's bestseller 'Q and A', which only took Swarup two months to write!

Adapted for the big screen, Swarup's achievements have already been marked by winning four Golden Globes and received eleven BAFTA nominations. It won 7 BAFTA’s at the ceremony in London's Royal Opera House in February 2009, and repeated it's success with 8 Oscars, including the award for "Best Film",  at the Hollywood ceremony later that month.

Film reviews:

Well, for all this, it's got punch and narrative pizzazz: a strong, clear, instantly graspable storyline that doesn't encumber itself with character complexity, and the cinematography by Anthony Dod Mantle is tremendous. It's definitely got that quirky-underdog twinkle and the silverware glint of awards can't be far away.

The Guardian.

Taken from the novel Q&A by Vikus Swarup, this is a big, visually sumptuous and energetic film. It's Dickens meets the Brothers Grimm, but set in India. What Boyle gives us, though, is an India that British film-makers, usually riddled with imperial guilt, rarely show us: the modern, globalised India of the fast buck, media, celebrity,call centres and high-rises. This new India is perfectly summed up when the film's young hero, Jamal, who has just been kicked in the face, says to two American tourists who have witnessed the assault, "You wanted to see the real face of India? Well, here it is!"

The Sunday Times.

Slumdog Millionaire is as acerbic as it is clear-eyed about the brutal power dynamics in modern-day Mumbai. But, at the same time, what makes it so warming and what has been inspiring audiences all across the world to cheer at its rousing ending, is its passion for a place that writer Suketu Mehta has described as a "maximum city".Mumbai has been through hell recently. But Slumdog Millionaire, whose everyman hero is a Muslim, is a wonderful tribute to it and to its people. It is, in fact, a maximum film.

The Telegraph.