Sep 09, 2005 05:52 PM
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(Updated Sep 09, 2005 05:52 PM)
The God of Small Things is a semi-autobiographical novel by Indian author Arundhati Roy. It is a story about the childhood experiences of a pair of fraternal twins who become victims of circumstance. The book is a description of how the small things in life build up, translate into people's behaviour and affecting their lives. The book won the Booker Prize in 1997.
The God of Small Things is Roy's first book, and as of 2005, is her only novel. Completed in 1996, the book took four years to write. The quality of the writing was first recognized by Pankaj Mishra, an editor with HarperCollins, who sent it to three British publishers. Roy received half-a-million pounds in advances, and rights to the book were sold in 21 countries.
The story primarily takes place in and around a town named Ayemenem, in the Kottayam district of Kerala, India. The temporal setting shifts back and forth from 1969, when the twins are 7 years of age, to 1993, when the twins are reunited at age 31. Much of the story is written from the viewpoint of a 7-year-old child. Malayalam words are liberally used in conjunction with English. Prominent facets of Kerala life that the novel captures are Communism, the caste system and the Syrian Christian way of life.
