The God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
The God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
39 Rating(s)
List: $19.95 | Sale: $13.97
Club: $9.97

The God of Small Things

Author: Arundhati Roy

Narrator: Sneha Mathan

Unabridged: 11 hr 45 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 06/06/2017

Synopsis

The New York Times bestselling and Booker Prize–winning novel about an Indian family in tragic decline that introduced the world to the voice of Arundhati RoyLikened to the works of Faulkner and Dickens when it was first published twenty years ago, this extraordinarily accomplished debut novel is a brilliantly plotted story of forbidden love and piercing political drama, centered on the tragic decline of an Indian family in the state of Kerala, on the southernmost tip of India. Armed only with the invincible innocence of children, the twins Rahel and Esthappen fashion a childhood for themselves in the shade of the wreck that is their family—their lonely, lovely mother Ammu (who loves by night the man her children love by day), their blind grandmother Mammachi (who plays Handel on her violin), their beloved uncle Chacko (Rhodes scholar, pickle baron, radical Marxist, bottom-pincher), their enemy Baby Kochamma (ex-nun and incumbent grandaunt), and the ghost of an imperial entomologist’s moth (with unusually dense dorsal tufts).When their English cousin and her mother arrive on a Christmas visit, the twins learn that things can change in a day. That lives can twist into new, ugly shapes, even cease forever. The brilliantly plotted story uncoils with an agonizing sense of foreboding and inevitability. Yet nothing prepares you for what lies at the heart of it.

About Arundhati Roy

Arundhati Roy is the author of The God of Small Things, which won the Booker Prize in 1997 and has been translated into more than forty languages, and The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, which was long-listed for the Man Booker Prize 2017. Roy has also published several works of non-fiction, including The Algebra of Infinite Justice, Listening to Grasshoppers and Broken Republic. She lives in Delhi.

About Sneha Mathan

Sneha Mathan is a voice actor and audiobook narrator. Her audiobook work has received several Earphones awards, and she is a three-time Audie Award finalist. She lives in Seattle.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Rajat on August 10, 2015

Okay, first things first. The God Of Small Things is a very very clever book, but what makes it exceptional is that it is both beautiful and crafty, a rare combination. This book has structure. Lots of it. She effectively creates a language of her own, a juvenile lucid language which complements the......more

Goodreads review by Federico on October 28, 2023

Small Perfection. 1969-93, Kerala, India. Rahel and Estha are two estranged early adult siblings, reunited again after decades apart. Rahel, vivacious, outspoken, and working hard abroad; Estha reclusive, near mute, and never far off home. As they fumblingly attempt to reconnect, flashbacks from t......more

Goodreads review by Adrianne on April 08, 2008

Lush, gorgeous prose: reading The God of Small Things is like having your arms and legs tied to a slowly moving, possibly dying horse, and being dragged face-down through the jungle. I mean, like that, only nice. You can't stop seeing and smelling everything, and it's all so foreign and rich. Potent......more

Goodreads review by Will on December 29, 2021

Arundhati Roy - image from Slate This is a wonderful, image-rich novel told over several generations of a family in India. The central event is the death of a young girl, and how racism, and petty, CYA politics, results in the death of an innocent for a crime that was never committed. The central cha......more

Goodreads review by Michael on April 05, 2022

I was grabbed viscerally by this book since yesterday that I finished today which I ended with the word “Tomorrow.” It was beautifully written, but it took me a while to appreciate the supersaturated text as there are analogies and allusions in nearly every sentence. The characters are drawn graphic......more

Quotes

“A novel of real ambition must invent its own language, and this one does.” New Yorker

“Outstanding. A glowing first novel.” Newsweek

“Dazzling…As subtle as it is powerful.” New York Times

“Splendid and stunning.” Washington Post Book World

“Offers such magic, mystery, and sadness that, literally, this reader turned the last page and decided to reread it. Immediately. It’s that hauntingly wonderful.” USA Today

“This story shows that sister relationships are often complex but never static, as the ways life affects each character also makes the bond closer…The God of Small Things is also an unforgettable portrait of family.” BookRiot

“Roy conjures a whoosh of wordplay that rises from the pages like a brilliant jazz improvisation…At once exotic and familiar to the Western reader, written in an English that’s completely new and invigorated by the Asian Indian influences of culture and language.” Amazon.com

“A brilliantly constructed first novel…In part a perfectly paced mystery story, in part an Indian Wuthering Heights: a gorgeous and seductive fever dream of a novel, and a truly spectacular debut.” Kirkus Reviews

Awards

  • Man Booker Prize
  • New York Times bestseller
  • New York Times Notable Book
  • Voice Arts Award
  • BookRiot Pick
  • Bustle Pick
  • Electric Literature
  • Kirkus Reviews Pick
  • New York Public Library Staff Pick
  • London Times Pick
Add to Cart
Add to Wish List