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No ‘single story’

The God of Small Things

Cicely Palser Havely suggests some themes and queries to help you engage with Arundhati Roy’s complex and elusive novel

AQA (A): Paper 2 Comparative set text: ‘Modern times’

When The God of Small Things was published in 1997 it received rapturous reviews. For those readers steeped in the traditional orientalist mindset of the West it seemed to be everything they expected of an Indian novel: lush, languorous and feminine. Few appeared to notice that Roy is bitingly critical of her society. In Britain she won the Booker prize but in her own country (and especially in her home state of Kerala) she was extensively criticised.

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Previous

Love songs through the ages

Next

Wordsworth and Coleridge: Lyrical Ballads

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