Description
Temporarily out of stock
Title: Ministry of Utmost Happiness, The
Author: ROY ARUNDHATI
Format: PAPERBACK
Publication date: 06/06/2017
Imprint: HAMISH HAMILTON
Price: $13.95
Publishing status: Available only if on hand
The follow-up to Roy’s Booker Prize
winning debut The God of Small Things,
this novel depicts the sweep of history
and the significance of individual lives
against larger political events in modern
India. Roy explores singular and collective
acts of resistance to unjust and oppressive
circumstances whether in the form of the
transwoman Anjum struggling to make a life
for herself, or architect-activist Tilo, seeking
love and independence for herself and her
people. Despite its deep engagement with
history and politics, elements of myth and
fable suffuse the book, making The Ministry
of Utmost Happiness a dreamlike, playful
and empathetic read.
A richly moving new novel-the first since the author’s Booker-Prize winning, internationally celebrated debut, The God of Small Things, went on to become a beloved best seller and enduring classic. The Ministry of Utmost Happiness transports us across a subcontinent on a journey of many years. It takes us deep into the lives of its gloriously rendered characters, each of them in search of a place of safety- in search of meaning, and of love. In a graveyard outside the walls of Old Delhi, a resident unrolls a threadbare Persian carpet. On a concrete sidewalk, a baby suddenly appears, just after midnight. In a snowy valley, a bereaved father writes a letter to his five-year-old daughter about the peoplewho came to her funeral. In a second-floor apartment, a lone woman chain-smokes as she reads through her old notebooks. At the Jannat Guest House, two people who have known each other all their lives sleep with their arms wrapped around each other, as though they have just met. A braided narrative of astonishing force and originality, The Ministry of Utmost Happiness is at once a love story and a provocation-a novel as inventive as it is emotionally engaging.
It is told with a whisper, in a shout, through joyous tears and sometimes with a bitter laugh. Its heroes, both present and departed, have been broken by the world we live in-and then mended by love. For this reason, they will never surrender. How to tell a shattered story? By slowly becoming everybody. No. By slowly becoming everything. Humane and sensuous, beautifully told, this extraordinary novel demonstrates on every page the miracle of Arundhati Roy’s storytelling gifts.
ISBN: 9780241303986
Dimension: 234mm X 153mm
Pages: 464
Edition: 01