The Ministry of Utmost Happiness: Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2017 - Softcover

Roy, Arundhati

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0241980763 ISBN 13: 9780241980767

Publisher: Penguin, 2018

Synopsis

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

About this title

Review:

She is back with a heavyweight state-of-the-nation story that has been ten years in the making (Daily Mail)

Roy's second novel proves as remarkable as her first (Financial Times)

The Ministry of Utmost Happiness confirms Roy's status as a writer of delicate human dramas that also touch on some of the largest questions of the day. It is the novel as intimate epic. Expect to see it on every prize shortlist this year (The Times)

Heartfelt, poetic, intimate, laced with ironic humour...The intensity of Roy's writing - the sheer amount she cares about these people - compels you to concentrate...This is the novel one hoped Arundhati Roy would write about India (Daily Telegraph)

Teems with human drama, contains a vivid cast of characters and offers an evocative, searing portrait of modern India (Tatler)

A beautiful and grotesque portrait of modern India and the world beyond. Take your time over it, just as the author did (Good Housekeeping)

Fantastic. The novel is unflinchingly critical of power, and yet she empowers her underdog characters to persevere, leaving readers with a few droplets of much-needed hope. It's heartening when writers live up to the hyperbole that surrounds them (Hirsh Sawhney)

A kaleidoscopic story about the struggle for Kashmir's independence (Washington Post)

A sprawling, kaleidoscopic fable about love and resistance in modern India (The Guardian)

The follow-up we've been longing for - a poetic, densely populated contemporary novel in the tradition of Dickens and Tolstoy. From its beginning, one is swept up in the story... With her exquisite and dynamic storytelling, Roy balances scenes of suffering and corruption with humour and transcendence

(Vogue)

From the Back Cover:

'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 . . .'

Anjum lives in a graveyard and gathers around her the misfits and outcasts of Delhi's streets. Tilo is a Kashmiri whose fate is to be loved by three men. When Anjum takes in an abandoned baby, it is Tilo who claims the child as her own - and so begins a tale that will sweep across twenty years, and cross the cities and forests of a teeming continent . . .

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin
• Publication date: 2018
• ISBN 10: 0241980763
• ISBN 13: 9780241980767
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 464