The Ministry of Utmost Happiness

Author Arundhati Roy
Narrator Arundhati Roy
Publisher Penguin Books Ltd
Run Time 16 hours and 37 minutes
Format Audio
Genre Modern and contemporary fiction, Narrative theme: Environmental issues, Narrative theme: Politics, Narrative theme: Sense of place, Narrative theme: Social issues, War, combat and military adventure fiction.

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What to expect

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, written and read by Arundhati Roy.

FROM THE BOOKER PRIZE WINNING AUTHOR OF THE GOD OF SMALL THINGS

LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2018

LONGLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2017

NOMINATED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FOR FICTION

LONGLISTED FOR THE CARNEGIE 2018

THE SUNDAY TIMES NUMBER ONE and THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

'A sprawling kaleidoscopic fable' Guardian, Books of the Year

'Roy's second novel proves as remarkable as her first' Financial Times

'A great tempest of a novel... which will leave you awed by the heat of its anger and the depth of its compassion' Washington Post

'A dazzling return to form' Independent

'Intricately layered and passionate, a work of extraordinary intricacy and grace' Prospect

'A masterpiece. Roy joins Dickens, Naipaul, García Márquez, and Rushdie in her abiding compassion, storytelling magic, and piquant wit. An entrancing, imaginative, and wrenching epic' Booklist starred review

'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...

Critics 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
A great tempest of a novel… which will leave you awed by the heat of its anger and the depth of its compassion
Washington Post
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
Kirkus (starred review)
An author worth waiting two decades for
Financial Times
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
Publishers Weekly (starred review)
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
Booklist (starred review)
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
This intimate epic about India over the past two decades is superb: political but never preachy; heartfelt yet ironic; precisely poetic
Daily Telegraph
Arguably the biggest publishing event of the year

Financial Times
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 first novel in 20 years from the Booker-prize winning author of The God of Small Things
Penguin

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