Slumdog Millionaire (MM MTI)

Vikas Swarup’s page-turning novel about an impoverished Indian waiter who stuns the world by correctly answering all twelve questions on a television quiz show. Now with movie-tie-in art, Slumdog Millionaire is a beautifully written, clever novel and “readers will consider themselves winners after spending time in the world of this very rich tale” (The Washington Post Book World). A beguiling blend of high comedy and poignancy, Vikas Swarup has created a kaleidoscopic vision of modern India, the struggle of good against evil, and what happens when one boy has no other choice in life but to survive. Directed by Danny Boyle (Trainspotting, A Life Less Ordinary, and 28 Days Later) and distributed by Fox Searchlight Pictures—the indie studio that made Little Miss Sunshine a hit—Slumdog Millionaire is taking the festival circuit by storm. In its coverage of the Telluride Film Festival, Variety said, “the runaway smash was Danny Boyle’s exhilarating, madly entertaining drama Slumdog Millionaire.” The Wall Street Journal film critic Joe Morgenstern said the film “takes us to a level that tops the Rockies for heightened experience. An amalgam of Oliver Twist, The Three Musketeers, and Bollywood extravaganza…there’s never been anything like this densely detailed phantasmagoria—groundbreaking in substance, damned near earth-shaking in style.”