Winner of the 1997 Booker Prize. The richly exotic story of the childhood the twins Esthappen and Rahel craft for themselves amongst India's vats of banana jam and mountains of peppercorns.
Here, perhaps, is the greatest Indian novel by a woman. Arundhati Roy's 'The God of Small Things' is an astonishingly rich, fertile novel, teeming with life, colour, heart-stopping language, wry comedy and a hint of magical realism.
Set against a background of political turbulence in Kerala, Southern India, 'The God of Small Things' tells the story of twins Esthappen and Rahel. Amongst 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).
Likened to the works of Faulkner and Dickens when it was first published twenty years ago, this extraordinarily accomplished debut novel is a brilliantly plotted story of forbidden love and piercing political drama, centered on the tragic decline of an Indian family in the state of Kerala, on the southernmost tip of India. Armed only with the invincible innocence of children, the twins Rahel and Esthappen fashion a childhood for themselves in the shade of the wreck that is their family-their lonely, lovely mother Ammu (who loves by night the man her children love by day), their blind grandmother Mammachi (who plays Handel on her violin), their beloved uncle Chacko (Rhodes scholar, pickle baron, radical Marxist, bottom-pincher), their enemy Baby Kochamma (ex-nun and incumbent grandaunt), and the ghost of an imperial entomologist's moth (with unusually dense dorsal tufts).
When their English cousin and her mother arrive on a Christmas visit, the twins learn that things can change in a day. That lives can twist into new, ugly shapes, even cease forever. The brilliantly plotted story uncoils with an agonizing sense of foreboding and inevitability. Yet nothing prepares you for what lies at the heart of it.
Penguin presents the audiobook edition of The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, written and read by Arundhati Roy.
LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2018 AND THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2017
'A sprawling kaleidoscopic fable' Guardian, Book of the Year * 'A dazzling return to form' Independent
THE SUNDAY TIMES #1 BESTSELLER FROM THE BOOKER-WINNING AUTHOR OF THE GOD OF SMALL THINGS
'An astonishing intimate epic. This is the novel one hoped Arundhati Roy would write about India' Daily Telegraph
'At magic hour; when the sun has gone but the light has not, armies of flying foxes unhinge themselves from the Banyan trees in the old graveyard and drift across the city like smoke . . .'
So begins The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, Arundhati Roy's incredible follow-up to The God of Small Things. We meet Anjum, who used to be Aftab, who runs a guesthouse in an Old Delhi graveyard and gathers around her the lost, the broken and the cast out. We meet Tilo, an architect, who, although she is loved by three men, lives in a 'country of her own skin'. When Tilo claims an abandoned baby as her own, her destiny and that of Anjum become entangled as a tale that sweeps across the years and a teeming continent takes flight . . .
'Glorious, colourful and compelling. Roy's second novel proves as remarkable as her first' Financial Times
'The book filled me with awe. Propulsive, playful, gorgeous' New York Times Book Review
'The unmissable literary read of the summer. With its insights into human nature, its memorable characters and its luscious prose, Ministry is well worth the wait' Time
'Staggeringly beautiful - a fierce, fabulously disobedient novel. Roy is writing at the height of her powers. Urgent, intimate ecstatic' Boston Globe
'A searing portrait of modern India' Tatler
'This vast novel will leave you awed by the heat of its anger and the depth of its compassion' Washington Post
Penguin presents the audiobook edition of My Seditious Heart by Arundhati Roy, read by Tania Rodrigues.
My Seditious Heart collects the work of a two-decade period when Arundhati Roy devoted herself to the political essay as a way of opening up space for justice, rights and freedoms in an increasingly hostile environment. Taken together, the essays speak in a uniquely spirited voice, marked by compassion, clarity and courage. Radical and superbly readable, they speak always in defence of the collective, of the individual and of the land, in the face of the destructive logic of financial, social, religious, military and governmental elites.
In constant conversation with the themes and settings of her novels, the essays form a near-unbroken memoir of Arundhati Roy's journey as both a writer and a citizen, of both India and the world, from 'The End of Imagination', which begins this book, to 'My Seditious Heart', with which it ends.
A dazzling, richly moving new novel by the internationally celebrated author of The God of Small Things
The Ministry of Utmost Happiness takes us on an intimate journey of many years across the Indian subcontinent—from the cramped neighborhoods of Old Delhi and the roads of the new city to the mountains and valleys of Kashmir and beyond, where war is peace and peace is war.
It is an aching love story and a decisive remonstration, a story told in a whisper, in a shout, through unsentimental tears and sometimes with a bitter laugh. Each of its characters is indelibly, tenderly rendered. Its heroes are people who have been broken by the world they live in and then rescued, patched together by acts of love—and by hope.
The tale 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.
As this ravishing, deeply humane novel braids these lives together, it reinvents what a novel can do and can be. The Ministry of Utmost Happiness demonstrates on every page the miracle of Arundhati Roy’s storytelling gifts.
In this rich dialogue on surveillance, empire, and power, Roy and Cusack describe meeting with National Security Agency whistleblower Ed Snowden.In late 2014, Arundhati Roy, John Cusack, and Daniel Ellsberg traveled to Moscow to meet with Edward Snowden. The result is a series of essays and dialogues in which Roy and Cusack reflect on their conversations with Snowden.In these provocative and penetrating discussions, Roy and Cusack discuss the nature of the state, empire, and surveillance in an era of perpetual war, the meaning of flags and patriotism, the role of foundations and NGOs in limiting dissent, and the ways in which capital but not people can freely cross borders.
Winner of the 1997 Booker Prize. The richly exotic story of the childhood the twins Esthappen and Rahel craft for themselves amongst India's vats of banana jam and mountains of peppercorns.Here, perhaps, is the greatest Indian novel by a woman. Arundhati Roy's 'The God of Small Things' is an astonishingly rich, fertile novel, teeming with life, colour, heart-stopping language, wry comedy and a hint of magical realism.Set against a background of political turbulence in Kerala, Southern India, 'The God of Small Things' tells the story of twins Esthappen and Rahel. Amongst 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).
Auf einem Friedhof in der Altstadt von Delhi wird ein handgeknüpfter Teppich ausgerollt. Auf einem Bürgersteig taucht plötzlich ein Baby auf. In einem verschneiten Tal schreibt ein Vater einen Brief an seine fünfjährige Tochter über die vielen Menschen, die zu ihrer Beerdigung kamen. Im Jannat Guest House umarmen sich im Schlaf zwei Menschen, als ob sie sich eben erst getroffen hätten - aber sie kennen sich schon ein Leben lang.
Erzählt mit einem Flüstern, einem Schrei, mit Freudentränen und manchmal mit einem bitteren Lachen, ist dieser Roman Liebeserklärung und Provokation zugleich.
Die kleinen Dinge, das sind der Streifen auf einem Wespenflügel, roter Nagellack auf den Fingern eines Schreiners, die geballte Faust auf einer Motorhaube. Die großen Dinge dagegen lauern unausgesprochen im Innern. Das wissen die siebenjährigen Zwillinge Rahel und Estha, und sie wissen auch, dass sich alles an einem einzigen Tag verändern kann. Und sie werden recht behalten. Als Rahel nach vielen Jahren zurückkehrt in ihr Heimatdorf im südindischen Kerala, ist nichts mehr, wie es einst war. Die Konservenfabrik der Familie verfallen, die geliebte Mutter tot, der Zwillingsbruder verstummt. Zurückgeblieben sind nur die Erinnerungen an eine Kindheit am Fluss, an die bewundernde Liebe zu Velutha, dem dunklen Angestellten ihrer Großmutter, und an einen tragischen Tag im Jahr 1969, der alles veränderte. Eine magische Geschichte vor dem Hintergrund der politischen Umbrüche Indiens.
