Arundhati Roy - The God of Small Things

Arundhati Roy was born in 1961 in Bengal, India, and grew up in Kerala. She got her degree in architecture from the Delhi School of Architecture, but became a screenwriter instead, writing scripts for movies and television in India. She lives in Delhi with her husband, film-maker Pradeep Kishen.

Her first novel, The God of Small Things (1997), won the prestigious Booker Prize and became an international best-seller. The book, which took Roy five years to write, is not strictly autobiographical, but she says “the sadness of the book” * has stayed with her, and that she may never write another novel.
The God of Small Thing
With sensuous prose, a dreamlike style infused with breathtakingly beautiful images and keen insight into human nature, Roy's debut novel charts fresh territory in the genre of magical, prismatic literature. Set in Kerala, India, during the late 1960s when Communism rattled the age-old caste system, the story begins with the funeral of young Sophie Mol, the cousin of the novel's protagonists, Rahel and her fraternal twin brother, Estha. In a circuitous and suspenseful narrative, Roy reveals the family tensions that led to the twins' behavior on the fateful night that Sophie drowned. Beneath the drama of a family tragedy lies a background of local politics, social taboos and the tide of history?all of which come together in a slip of fate, after which a family is irreparably shattered. Roy captures the children's candid observations but clouded understanding of adults' complex emotional lives. Rahel notices that "at times like these, only the Small Things are ever said. The Big Things lurk unsaid inside." Plangent with a sad wisdom, the children's view is never oversimplified, and the adult characters reveal their frailties?and in one case, a repulsively evil power?in subtle and complex ways. While Roy's powers of description are formidable, she sometimes succumbs to overwriting, forcing every minute detail to symbolize something bigger, and the pace of the story slows. But these lapses are few, and her powers coalesce magnificently in the book's second half. Roy's clarity of vision is remarkable, her voice original, her story beautifully constructed and masterfully told.