Audiobooks Narrated by Arundhati Roy

The Ministry of Utmost Happiness: A Novel

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.

Arundhati Roy (Author), Arundhati Roy (Narrator)

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The Ministry of Utmost Happiness: 'The Literary Read of the Summer' - Time

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

Arundhati Roy (Author), Arundhati Roy (Narrator)

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