Arundhati Roy - The Ministry of Utmost Happiness

Details
Hardback - As new

Rating
3.5/5 Goodreads

Synopsis
The Ministry of Utmost Happiness is 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 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 unsenti- mental 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.

"Propulsive, playful... Roy writes with astonishing vividness. In this new book [she is] prospering with stories, and writing in gorgeous, supple prose." - Karan Mahajan, The New York Times
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"Powerful and moving... A novel [that] reminds us what fiction can do. Roy's exquisite prose is a rare instrument. She captures the headlines, and the quiet moments when lovers share poems and dreams." - Heller McAlpin, San Francisco Chronicle