{"product_id":"the-ministry-of-utmost-happiness-isbn-9780525434818","title":"The Ministry of Utmost Happiness","description":"\u003cb\u003eNational Bestseller \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLonglisted for the Man Booker Prize \u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003eOne of the Best Books of the Year: \u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Washington Post\u003c\/i\u003e * \u003ci\u003eThe Boston Globe\u003c\/i\u003e * \u003ci\u003eMinneapolis Star Tribune\u003c\/i\u003e * \u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003eNPR\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e * \u003ci\u003eNewsday\u003c\/i\u003e * \u003ci\u003eThe Guardian\u003c\/i\u003e * \u003ci\u003eFinancial Times\u003c\/i\u003e * \u003ci\u003eThe Christian Science Monitor\u003c\/i\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Ministry of Utmost Happiness \u003c\/i\u003etakes us on an intimate journey 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. Braiding together the lives of a diverse cast of characters who have been broken by the world they live in and then rescued, patched together by acts of love—and by hope, here Arundhati Roy reinvents what a novel can do and can be.“A great tempest of a novel. . . . Will leave you awed.” —\u003ci\u003eThe Washington Post\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Staggeringly beautiful. . . . Once a decade, if we are lucky, a novel emerges from the cinder pit of living that asks the urgent question of our global era. . . . Roy’s novel is this decade’s ecstatic and necessary answer.” —\u003ci\u003eThe Boston Globe\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “Powerful and moving. . . . Infused with so much passion—political, social, emotional—that it vibrates. It may leave you shaking, too.” —\u003ci\u003eSan Francisco Chronicle\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Roy writes with astonishing vividness.” —\u003ci\u003eThe New York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “Magisterial. . . . \u003ci\u003eThe Ministry of Utmost Happiness\u003c\/i\u003e works its empathetic magic upon a breathtakingly broad slate.” —\u003ci\u003eO, The Oprah Magazine\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A fiercely unforgettable novel about gender, terrorism, Indian’s caste system, corruption and politics. . . . A love story with characters so heartbreaking and compelling they sear themselves into the reader’s brain.” —\u003ci\u003eUSA Today\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Thrilling. . . . [Roy’s] luminous passages span eras and regions of the Indian subcontinent and artfully weave the stories of several characters into a triumphant symphony.” —\u003ci\u003eMinneapolis Star Tribune\u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “A lustrously braided and populated tale.” —\u003ci\u003eVanity Fair\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Roy’s second novel proves as remarkable as her first. . . . Through [the characters’] archetypal interactions, juxtaposed with Roy’s glorious social details, you will have been granted a powerful sense of their world, of the complexity, energy and diversity of contemporary India.” —\u003ci\u003eFinancial Times\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Epic in scale, but intimately human in its concerns, the long-awaited story dazzles with its kaleidoscopic narrative approach and unforgettable characters.” —\u003ci\u003eElle\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“The novel weaves the personal and the political with powerful results. . . . Roy turns her lens outward to examine India’s rich but violent history and the catastrophic lingering effects of Partition.” —\u003ci\u003eEsquire\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A riotous carnival, as wryly funny and irreverent as its author.” —\u003ci\u003eThe Guardian\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A deeply rewarding work. . . . Images in \u003ci\u003eThe Ministry of Utmost Happiness\u003c\/i\u003e . . . wedge themselves in the mind like memories of lived experience.” —\u003ci\u003eSlate\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Complex and ambitious. . . . A deep and richly satisfying read.” —\u003ci\u003eThe Christian Science Monitor \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“One of the best protest novels ever written. . . . Roy elucidates the conversation around power and diversity in a way that no other author does.” —\u003ci\u003eLos Angeles Review of Books\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A rich, romantic, and sprawling tale. . . . You’re guaranteed to fall in love with the characters and be swept up by the writing.” —\u003ci\u003eGlamour\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e“Once again, Roy demonstrates her mastery of exquisite prose, visionary intelligence and a bent for epic storytelling.” —\u003ci\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Seattle Times\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Haunting. . . . A passionate political masterpiece delivered in an enchanting array of narrative styles and voices.” —\u003ci\u003eThe Times Literary Supplement\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Stunning. . . . Roy’s lyrical sentences, and the ferocity of her narrative, are a wonder to behold.” —\u003ci\u003eRichmond Times-Dispatch\u003c\/i\u003eArundhati Roy is the author of \u003ci\u003eThe God of Small Things\u003c\/i\u003e, which won the Booker Prize and has been translated into more than forty languages. She also has published several books of nonfiction including \u003ci\u003eThe End of Imagination\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eCapitalism: A Ghost Story\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eThe Doctor and the Saint\u003c\/i\u003e. She lives in New Delhi.She was the fourth of five children, born on a cold January night, by lamplight (power cut), in Shahjahanabad, the walled city of Delhi. Ahlam Baji, the midwife who delivered her and put her in her mother’s arms wrapped in two shawls, said, “It’s a boy.” Given the circumstances, her error was understandable.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e A month into her first pregnancy Jahanara Begum and her husband decided that if their baby was a boy they would name him Aftab. Their first three children were girls. They had been waiting for their Aftab for six years. The night he was born was the happiest of Jahanara Begum’s life.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe next morning, when the sun was up and the room nice and warm, she unswaddled little Aftab. She explored his tiny body—eyes nose head neck armpits fingers toes—with sated, unhurried delight. That was when she discovered, nestling underneath his boy-parts, a small, unformed, but undoubtedly girl-part.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIs it possible for a mother to be terrified of her own baby? Jahanara Begum was. Her first reaction was to feel her heart constrict and her bones turn to ash. Her second reaction was to take another look to make sure she was not mistaken. Her third reaction was to recoil from what she had created while her bowels convulsed and a thin stream of shit ran down her legs. Her fourth reaction was to contemplate killing herself and her child. Her fifth reaction was to pick her baby up and hold him close while she fell through a crack between the world she knew and worlds she did not know existed. There, in the abyss, spinning through the darkness, everything she had been sure of until then, every single thing, from the smallest to the biggest, ceased to make sense to her. In Urdu, the only language she knew, all things, not just living things but \u003ci\u003eall \u003c\/i\u003ethings—carpets, clothes, books, pens, musical instruments—had a gender. Everything was either masculine or feminine, man or woman. Everything except her baby. Yes of course she knew there was a word for those like him—\u003ci\u003eHijra\u003c\/i\u003e. Two words actually, \u003ci\u003eHijra \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eKinnar\u003c\/i\u003e. But two words do not make a language.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWas it possible to live outside language? Naturally this question did not address itself to her in words, or as a single lucid sentence. It addressed itself to her as a soundless, embryonic howl.","brand":"Vintage","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46303495422181,"sku":"NP9780525434818","price":19.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780525434818.jpg?v=1767740522","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/the-ministry-of-utmost-happiness-isbn-9780525434818","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}