One of India’s best-known authors, Arundhati Roy, is set to publish her second novel twenty years after the release of Man Booker Prize-winning debut The God of Small Things.
The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, her second novel, will be published in June 2017, the date today confirmed by Roy’s publisher Hamish Hamilton. “I am glad to report that the mad souls (even the wicked ones) in The Ministry of Utmost Happiness have found a way into the world, and that I have found my publishers,” Roy commented.
Roy has written a plethora of non-fiction between the writing of these novels, discussing topics ranging from the US invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan to India’s nuclear tests, and Kashmir’s search for freedom and identity.
The God of Small Things was well-received and became a bestseller as well as a crucial contemporary text dealing with the political realities in India, social discrimination and class relations regarding Untouchables and Touchables.
The writing in Roy’s second novel is: “extraordinary, and so too are the characters – brought to life with such generosity and empathy, in language of the utmost freshness, joyfully reminding us that words are alive too, that they can wake us up and lend us new ways of seeing, feeling, hearing, engaging” said Simon Prosser and Meru Gokhale of publishers Hamish Hamilton and Penguin in a statement.
As yet, a specific date of publication has not been released, but the novel will be released in June of next year. Check out Roy discussing her first novel below:
