Gregory David Roberts

Gregory David Roberts was born in Melbourne in 1952. From 1972 to 1975, he was one of the leaders of the student movement. In 1977, he committed his first robbery with a fake gun. In 1978, he was arrested and escaped from Pentridge Prison the same year. By 1982, he was in Bombay and a few months later joined the ranks of the Mujahideen in Afghanistan, where he was wounded in battle and transferred to Pakistan. In 1990, he was arrested in Frankfurt and imprisoned in the high-security correctional facility of Preungesheim. He was extradited to Australia, where he served the remainder of his sentence. During his years in Australia, he wrote "Shantaram," which has garnered a devoted readership in every country where it has been published.