Arundhati Roy is the author of the Booker Prize-winning novel THE GOD OF SMALL THINGS. Her nonfiction writings include THE ALGEBRA OF INFINITE JUSTICE, LISTENING TO GRASSHOPPERS, BROKEN REPUBLIC, CAPITALISM: A Ghost Story, and THINGS THAT CAN AND CANNOT BE SAID, co-authored with John Cusack.
THE MINISTRY OF UTMOST HAPPINESS begins with Anjum --- who used to be Aftab --- unrolling a threadbare Persian carpet in a city graveyard she calls home. We encounter the odd, unforgettable Tilo and the men who loved her --- including Musa, sweetheart and ex-sweetheart, lover and ex-lover; their fates are as entwined as their arms used to be and always will be. We meet Tilo’s landlord, a former suitor, now an intelligence officer posted to Kabul. And then we meet the two Miss Jebeens: the first a child born in Srinagar and buried in its overcrowded Martyrs’ Graveyard; the second found at midnight, abandoned on a concrete sidewalk in the heart of New Delhi.
Set against a background of political turbulence in Kerala, Southern India, THE GOD OF SMALL THINGS tells the story of twins Esthappen and Rahel. Among the vats of banana jam and heaps of peppercorns in their grandmother's factory, they try to craft a childhood for themselves amidst what constitutes their family --- their lonely, lovely mother, their beloved Uncle Chacko (pickle-baron, radical Marxist and bottom-pincher) and their avowed enemy; Baby Kochamma (ex-nun and incumbent grand-aunt).
