The God of Small Things
Twins in Kerala, a drowning, and a love that crosses caste — told out of order so the ending arrives from every direction at once.
Twins in Kerala, a drowned English cousin, and a love across caste that the family and the state both punish. Roy tells it out of sequence, so the catastrophe is known from the first pages and the book becomes about how it was arrived at. It won the Booker in 1997 and remains her only novel for twenty years.
Recommended by 1 Person
William Dalrymple
Of all the great modern Indian novels, of which there has been a flood, Arundhati Roy is the one I enjoyed most. It’s got that fabulous quality, in the literal sense. It has a craftsmanship to it, and one of the greatest endings to any novel. There are so few modern novels which end perfectly, with that perfect click into place, the lock clicking shut. But it has that, and it’s a very well-worked, well-written novel.
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