Arundhati Roy’s next fiction in 2017

New Delhi, October 3

Advertisement

Arundhati Roy’s announced that her next work of fiction — her second novel — will be published in June 2017, 19 years after her first, ‘The God of Small Things’.

Penguin India, which will publish the book with UK’s Hamish Hamilton, announced Roy’s next novel, ‘The Minister of Utmost Happiness’, on Twitter on Monday: “Delighted to announce that we will be publishing #ArundhatiRoy's new novel 'The Ministry of Utmost Happiness'!”

Roy confirmed in a statement: “ I am glad to report that the mad souls (even the wicked ones) in 'The Ministry of Utmost Happiness' have found a way into the world, and that I have found my publishers.”

"To publish this book is both a pleasure and an honour.

What an incredible book it is — on multiple levels; one of the finest we have read in recent times," said Simon Prosser, Publishing Director of Hamish Hamilton & Penguin Books UK; and Meru Gokhale, Editor-in-Chief, Literary Publishing of Penguin Random House India.

"The writing is extraordinary and so too are the characters — brought to life with such generosity and empathy, in language of the utmost freshness, joyfully reminding us that words are alive too, that they can wake us up and lend us new ways of seeing, feeling, hearing, engaging. It makes the novel new — in the original meaning of novels," Penguin’s statement said.

Roy's literary agent David Godwin: "Only Arundhati could have written this novel. Utterly original. It has been 20 years in the making. And well worth the wait". — PTI