The Ministry of Utmost Happiness: A novel

Arundhati Roy

Jun 2017 · Penguin Random House Audio · Narrated by Arundhati Roy

About this audiobook

New York Times Best Seller
Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize
Named a Best Book of 2017 by NPR, Amazon, Kirkus, The Washington Post, Newsday, and the Hudson Group

A dazzling, richly moving new novel by the internationally celebrated author of The God of Small Things
 
The Ministry of Utmost Happiness 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 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 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.

Ratings and reviews

I loved this book. The narrative is unusual, but it requires a level of focus and intelligence that, sadly, American readers don't usually possess. Ms. Roy gives a lot of information about the upheaval in Kashmir as it relates to the history of one of the characters, as well as discussing very frankly the hardships faced by marginalised people in India. If you aren't willing to read about the very recent struggles (circa early - mid 1990s) in that region, or if you're uncomfortable with transgender characters or India's caste system (which is similar to American racism, viz, based on skin tone), this book is not for you.

I tried on several occasions to get into this book. But, sadly that did not happen. I could not even finish it. It seemed to jump all over and struggled to follow.

Arundhati Roy has found out how to tell the truth of us in a thousand ways. It has been a pure delight to listen to her tell this story in her own voice, as an audiobook. Treat yourself to the experience!

About the author

ARUNDHATI ROY is the author of the Booker Prize-winning novel The God of Small Things. Her nonfiction writings include The Algebra of Infinite Justice, Listening to Grasshoppers, Broken Republic, and Capitalism: A Ghost Story, and most recently, Things That Can and Cannot Be Said, coauthored with John Cusack.