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Hamish Hamilton to publish new novel from Arundhati Roy

Arundhati Roy

Hamish Hamilton UK and Penguin India are proud to announce that they will publish The Ministry of Utmost Happiness by Arundhati Roy in June 2017. It is her first work of fiction since The God of Small Things, which won the Booker Prize nineteen years ago in 1997.

Arundhati Roy commented, "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."

Editors Simon Prosser (Hamish Hamitlon) & Meru Gokhale (Penguin India) said: "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.

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 novel."

The rights were acquired through a deal with agent, David Godwin. He added: "Only Arundhati could have written this novel. Utterly original. It has been 20 years in the making. And well worth the wait."

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