The Ministry of Utmost Happiness
Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2017
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Narrated by:
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Arundhati Roy
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By:
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Arundhati Roy
About this listen
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...
Critic reviews
However the story gets so co fusing with sooooo many characters. In the end I was listening just to the snapshots of writing having lost the plot completely.
Beautiful writing
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wonderful storytelling
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Narration by Arundhati was a bad decision as she was stumbling with her own words, getting tired of her own ’filibustering’ at several sections.
I hope in future this talented author creates something more free-flowing, spontaneous none strenuous for us.
Probably my expectation was too high
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All that said, Roy writes beautifully with imagery and descriptions that paint pictures and scenery in your head. I would have struggled reading the book, though, as there is quite a bit of Urdu and other Indian and Pakistani language which as a non-speaker I would just have skipped over, that would have been a pity, as it's lovely to listen to, especially the poetry. I just wish Roy had stuck to writing and let a good narrator read it for us.
beautifully written but confusing
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Performance spoiled it.
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