The Ministry of Utmost Happiness - Hardcover

Roy, Arundhati

3.54

35,924 ratings by Goodreads

9780735234345: The Ministry of Utmost Happiness

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0735234345 ISBN 13: 9780735234345

Publisher: Hamish Hamilton, 2017

View all copies of this ISBN edition:

2017 Man Booker Prize Longlist

The Ministry of Utmost Happinessis a dazzling new novel by the internationally celebrated author of The God of Small Things. It takes us on an intimate journey of many years across the Indian subcontinent—from the cramped neighborhoods of Old Dehli 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 richly complex 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.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of 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:

'Glorious, colourful and compelling. Roy's second novel proves as remarkable as her first' Financial Times

'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 guest-house 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 . . .

'Astonishing, filled me with awe' New York Times Book Review

'Captivating' La Repubblica (Italy)

'A gem - a great tempest of a novel: a remarkable creation, a story both intimate and international, swelling with comedy and outrage' Washington Post

'Amazing' The Hindu (India)

'An astonishing intimate epic' Daily Telegraph

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.