Gregory David Roberts: biography, personal life, books

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

HD Roberts' Shantaram, published in 2003, introduced millions of readers to Australian jailbreak Lean and other unforgettable characters. In 2017, Anonymous Content and Paramount Studios acquired not only the film rights to the Shantaram novel, but also its sequel, Shadow of the Mountain, which was released in 2015. What is the secret of the novel's popularity?

Shantaram

The protagonist of the novel is a fugitive Lindsay, who is on the run from justice and comes to India to start a new life. He walks the streets of the city, where glitter and poverty, kindness and big smiles, murder and drugs, palaces and slums happily coexist. It is in the slums that Lin finds herself when the money runs out.

In Bombay, he gets into the mafia, starts working for them. Lin finds true friends, his beloved girl Carla. It is the kindness and responsiveness of otherspeople helped Lin rethink his own life and begin to appreciate what you have. The mother of one of his friends named him Shantaram, which means "peaceful person".

Lin illegally trades in gold, currency and fake passports. After the death of two best friends, he spends several months in a drug den, from where he is pulled out by the mafia Kader Khan and helps get rid of his addiction. Together they go to Kader's homeland - to Afghanistan, where there was a war.

Shadow of the Mountain

After the events described in "Shantaram", two years have passed. Returning from that fateful trip, Lin continues to cooperate with the mafia. Carla's beloved girl married another, Lin "almost happily" got along with her best friend Lisa. The unpleasant Sanjay has become the leader of the mafia, but Lin, despite bitter losses, will have to fulfill the last assignment given to him in the mountains of Afghanistan - to win the trust of the sage, gain faith and love.

Truth and fiction

"Shantaram" is a mixture of fiction and facts from the real life of Gregory David Roberts, whose biography includes such a fact as escaping from an Australian prison. The author says that he wanted to write two or three books and include real life events in them. But his novels are not autobiographies, the characters and dialogues in them are fictitious.

Writing is all Gregory has been doing all his life. He sold his first story for money when he was 16 years old. All the characters in the novel and the plot are almost fictitious. Topics are excitingthe author's questions: in "Shantaram" - this is exile, in "Mountain Shadow" - the search for love and faith. The author says that these novels are not about him, the narrator is a character who knows his thoughts and experiences, but still he is not Gregory John Peter Smith.

Creating a novel

When David starts a new novel, he creates the characters' faces and pins them to a cork board on the wall. He writes every day, lives with his characters every hour of his life. Sometimes it works in silence, sometimes with music. Creates playlists depending on the mood. As he moves from one state to another in the novel, he changes the music to which he works - it is she who helps to create harmony of lines and rhymes.

Gregory David Roberts wrote his sensational book in a Bombay hotel - he turned a hotel room into a studio: filled with bright colors, textures, paintings and spiritual inspiration. This world became two years more real than life outside the window, it helped to maintain a constant connection with the theme of the novel and the characters. He had few visitors, the writer rarely left the studio - once or twice a month. At the same time, several plays were written.

First, Gregory created the space - studied the material, drew up a picture of the novel, drew a grid of chapters, combined the scenes that would take place in each of them. Then I started layering symbolic images: mountains, animals, textures, smells, numbers. He moved these elements on the wall until he felt the right rhythm and mood.

"Length 2.8 meters, width 60 cm - the final version of this "architectural masterpiece"" - jokes Gregory David Roberts. The author's biography indicates that he spent several years in India, and to describe nature or caves, he wandered around a lot, explored the mountain in Sanjay Gandhi Park, the caves in Kanheri north of Bombay.

Worldview and philosophy

GD Roberts' books are full of philosophical meaning. His worldview was influenced by his mother, who instilled in him a love of philosophy: she read Socrates, Marcus Aurelius and Erasmus of Rotterdam, accustoming her son to their works. When asked why the search for love and faith became the theme of his books, the writer replies that a long journey through science and prayer led him to this topic. He began to understand these things when he first lost them.

Gregory David took heroin for years and became a robber to buy it. The writer says that he did not just break the law, but violated the covenant to society. He knows this firsthand, because many times he acted dishonestly, destroying faith. Many years have passed, but he is still looking for a way to become part of the world and learning this. This is the story of love and faith. It is in Shantaram. There is a lot of wisdom and reflection in the book, so the next novel, Shadow of the Mountain, will have more humor.

Short biography

Gregory David Roberts was born in 1952 in Melbourne (Australia). In 1978 he was sentenced to 19 years in prison for a series of armed robberies. because ofdrug addiction lost his family and custody of his daughter. All the money went to drugs, but in order to get them, Gregory robbed institutions that had insurance. He became known as the "building society robber" and his habit of saying "thank you" and "please" to the people he robbed earned him the nickname "Gentleman Bandit".

In 1980, in broad daylight, he escaped from prison, settled in Mumbai, where he lived for 10 years. He contacted the local mafia, was sent to the Arthur Road prison, but thanks to bribes he was released. In Afghanistan, he was engaged in arms smuggling. In 1990, he was arrested in Frankfurt and extradited to Australia, where he spent 6 years in prison, 2 of them in solitary confinement.

After Shantaram

After the release of the novel, Roberts took up human rights issues, environmental and he alth protection, and charitable activities. He is very worried that there are a lot of poor and disadvantaged people in the world. In 2014, on his website and social media pages, Roberts announced that he was retiring from public life: he would not go to parties, dinners, writers' festivals, meetings, book signings, etc.

After the novel "Shantaram", which mentions his daughter, the writer received many letters in which he was asked about the girl. Roberts replied that he appreciates the attention and care of readers, explained that he had renewed his relationship with his daughter, but this information is very personal. The decision to retire from public life has nothing to do with it, he just follows the callhearts and spends more time with loved ones.

To be creative, he must be with his family away from prying eyes. About his biography, Gregory David Roberts clarified that he is engaged to Françoise Sturdz, President of the Hope Foundation in India. He is working on new books, a graphic novel, and has written a script for the future Shantaram series. His favorite city "for dancing in the rain and riding a motorcycle" will always be Bombay, although Roberts has lived in Switzerland for many years.