On publication Arundhati Roy's first novel
The God of Small Things
(1997) rapidly became an international bestseller, winning the Booker Prize and creating a new space for Indian literature and culture within the arts, even as it courted controversy and divided critical opinion.
This guide to Roy’s ground-breaking novel offers:
an accessible introduction to the text and contexts of
a critical history, surveying the many interpretations of the text from publication to the present
a selection of new essays and reprinted critical essays by Padmini Mongia, Aijaz Ahmad, Brinda Bose, Anna Clarke, Émilienne Baneth-Nouailhetas and Alex Tickell on
, providing a range of perspectives on the novel and extending the coverage of key critical approaches identified in the survey section
cross-references between sections of the guide, in order to suggest links between texts, contexts and criticism
suggestions for further reading.
Part of the
Routledge Guides to Literature
series, this volume is essential reading for all those beginning detailed study of
and seeking not only a guide to the novel, but a way through the wealth of contextual and critical material that surrounds Roy's text.