Arundhati Roy announces second novel after 20-year gap

The Ministry of Utmost Happiness follows her debut, The God of Small Things, which won the Booker prize in 1997

Twenty years after Arundhati Roy won the 1997 Booker prize for her debut novel The God of Small Things, the Indian novelist’s second, The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, is set to be published in 2017, her publisher has announced.

Roy has published a wide range of nonfiction, covering topics from the US invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan to a condemnation of India’s nuclear tests, since she won the Booker in 1997 for her story of twins Rahel and Estha growing up in Kerala. But The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, which publisher Hamish Hamilton announced on Monday, will be only her second novel.

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