THE SUNDAY TIMES #1 BESTSELLER and THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER 'Magnificent - unlike anything I've read in years. An absolutely dazzling, original, and ultimately profound novel... A masterpiece. Very few writers can write with such intense and yet precise emotional intelligence. Arundhati Roy is properly special. We should be grateful to have her among us.' Mirza Waheed, author of The Book of Gold Leaves 'Roy's second novel proves as remarkable as her first' Financial Times 'A great tempest of a novel... which will leave you awed by the heat of its anger and the depth of its compassion' Washington Post The first novel in 20 years from the Booker-prize winning author of The God of Small Things The Ministry of Utmost Happiness takes us on a journey of many years-the story spooling outwards from the cramped neighbourhoods of Old Delhi into the burgeoning new metropolis and beyond, to the Valley of Kashmir and the forests of Central India, where war is peace and peace is war, and where, from time to time, 'normalcy' is declared.