The Ministry of Utmost Happiness

Reviews

She is back with a heavyweight state-of-the-nation story that has been ten years in the making Roy's second novel proves as remarkable as her first A great tempest of a novel... which will leave you awed by the heat of its anger and the depth of its compassion A humane, engaged near-fairy tale that soon turns dark - full of characters and their meetings, accidental and orchestrated alike to find, yes, that utmost happiness of which the title speaks An author worth waiting two decades for Ambitious, original, and haunting. A novel [that] fuses tenderness and brutality, mythic resonance and the stuff of headlines . . .essential to Roy's vision of a bewilderingly beautiful, contradictory, and broken world A masterpiece. Roy joins Dickens, Naipaul, García Márquez, and Rushdie in her abiding compassion, storytelling magic, and piquant wit. A tale of suffering, sacrifice and transcendence-an entrancing, imaginative, and wrenching epic 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 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 Teems with human drama, contains a vivid cast of characters and offers an evocative, searing portrait of modern India A beautiful and grotesque portrait of modern India and the world beyond. Take your time over it, just as the author did This intimate epic about India over the past two decades is superb: political but never preachy; heartfelt yet ironic; precisely poetic

Arguably the biggest publishing event of the year

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 A kaleidoscopic story about the struggle for Kashmir's independence A sprawling, kaleidoscopic fable about love and resistance in modern India The first novel in 20 years from the Booker-prize winning author of The God of Small Things Expand reviews