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 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 the 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 entwined as their arms used to be and always will be. We meet Tilo's landlord, a former suitor, now and 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 Minnistry of Utmost Happiness demonstrates on every page the miracle of Arundhati Roy's storytelling gifts.

Auteur

Arundhati Roy

Éditeur

HAMISH HAMILTON

ISBN

9780735234345

Langue

anglais

Année de publication

2017

Catégorie

Livre anglais, Roman canadien et international

Couverture

Couverture rigide

Format

Grand

Nombre de pages

449

Condition

Très bon état