“A lustrously braided and populated tale woven with ribbons of identity, love, mourning, and joy—and tied together with yellow mangoes, cigarettes, and damask roses.”
Sloane Crosley, Vanity Fair
In conversation with Journalist Bilal Qureshi
Arundhati Roy’s debut novel The God of Small Things became a modern classic and international best seller after winning the Man Booker Prize in 1997. She returns to fiction with The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, taking 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. 20 years after her debut, the novel was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and named a Best Book of 2017 by NPR, Amazon, Kirkus, and The Washington Post.
Roy has also written several non-fiction books, including Field Notes on Democracy, Walking with the Comrades, Capitalism: A Ghost Story, The End of Imagination, and most recently Things That Can and Cannot Be Said, co-authored with John Cusack. Roy is the recipient of the 2002 Lannan Foundation Cultural Freedom Prize, the 2011 Norman Mailer Prize for Distinguished Writing, and the 2015 Ambedkar Sudar award.
More about Arundhati Roy
The Guardian, May 2017
‘Fiction takes its time’: Arundhati Roy on why it took 20 years to write her second novel
The New York Times, June 2017
Arundhati Roy’s Long-Awaited Novel Is an Ambitious Look at Turmoil in India
The New Yorker, June 2017
Arundhati Roy Returns to Fiction, in Fury
“This book, only second from Roy’s stable in the last twenty years, retains the metaphorical music that she used to fair rapture in her first book. The descriptions, spring to life with her subtle touch, and she, almost, looks to have done that effortlessly.”
Times of India
Book Signing
A book signing will follow the event. A selection of backlist titles and the author’s current book will be available for sale from Classic Lines.