Karla
Is Karla 100% fiction or is she a part of the real life?
Shantaram Questions
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Karla
I always believed that this was more of an autobiography, so I did a bit of research! This is directly from an interview done with the author; the site is listed below.
Q. 6) When did the idea of an autobiography, with the city both as a character and as a backdrop, first strike you?
A. 6). With respect, Shantaram is not an autobiography, it’s a novel. If the book reads like an autobiography, I take that as a very high compliment, because I structured the created narrative to read like fiction but feel like fact. I wanted the novel to have the page-turning drive of a work of fiction but to be informed by such a powerful stream of real experience that it had the authentic feel of fact.
That being said, the answer to your question is that I made the decision – to include myself in my own work – while I was on a smuggling run to Africa. I sat at a table in my favourite dive in Kinshasa, in what was then the nation of Zaire, and shared a drinking session with five other men who were all in the city as smugglers, mercenaries, and law-breakers. We took turns to tell each other our stories. When the other men voted my story the most interesting, I made the decision to stop writing from the invisible, omniscient author’s perspective, and to include myself in my work.
Q. 6) When did the idea of an autobiography, with the city both as a character and as a backdrop, first strike you?
A. 6). With respect, Shantaram is not an autobiography, it’s a novel. If the book reads like an autobiography, I take that as a very high compliment, because I structured the created narrative to read like fiction but feel like fact. I wanted the novel to have the page-turning drive of a work of fiction but to be informed by such a powerful stream of real experience that it had the authentic feel of fact.
That being said, the answer to your question is that I made the decision – to include myself in my own work – while I was on a smuggling run to Africa. I sat at a table in my favourite dive in Kinshasa, in what was then the nation of Zaire, and shared a drinking session with five other men who were all in the city as smugglers, mercenaries, and law-breakers. We took turns to tell each other our stories. When the other men voted my story the most interesting, I made the decision to stop writing from the invisible, omniscient author’s perspective, and to include myself in my work.
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