Arundhati Roy: Love Laws, Two Novels and the Exam Traps

“Who should be loved, and how. And how much.” Those nine words from The God of Small Things are the shortest route into Arundhati Roy. They come from the passage on the Love Laws, the unwritten rules of caste, class and family that decide which bodies may touch. Every major event in the novel, from Ammu’s night by the river to the death of Velutha, is a punishment for breaking them. Understand that line and you understand why Roy is taught as a caste novelist, not only as a stylist.

Exams rarely ask you to interpret the line, though. They ask you to place Roy correctly: in the right year, against the right prize, in the right chronological sequence, and on the right side of labels like “diasporic” or “autobiographical”. This guide is built around those placements, using the questions already on this site.

Why examiners keep coming back to Roy

Roy has a small body of fiction, which makes her easy to examine. Two novels means two dates, two settings and two casts of characters, and question setters love authors whose facts fit inside four options. She also marks the 1990s boom in Indian English fiction and its shift towards caste, gender and the state.

On this site, Roy turns up in three kinds of question. The first is direct recall, such as the June 2026 UGC NET question asking which Indian book won the Booker in 1997. The second is chronology, where The God of Small Things is one of four or five Indian novels to be arranged by year. The third, and the most common, uses Roy as a distractor: her name or her novel sits among the options for a question whose answer is Kiran Desai, Toni Morrison or Vikram Seth. That third type is where students lose marks, because a familiar name pulls the eye.

My advice: give Roy one focused hour. Learn the dates and the setting, read the character table below twice, and spend the rest of the hour on the “asked in exams” items, because they show you exactly how she is used against you.

Roy’s books with dates

The fiction list is short. The non-fiction list is long, and you only need its shape: essays against the nuclear tests and the big dams around 1998 to 1999, essays on war and empire in the early 2000s, reportage from central India around 2011, and collected volumes after that. Dates below follow Encyclopaedia Britannica’s entry on Roy.

One date clash to watch: The Algebra of Infinite Justice is sometimes printed as 2001 because the title essay appeared in a newspaper in September 2001. Britannica dates the book to 2002. If an option list gives you both, the book is the safer answer at 2002.

The God of Small Things (1997): what to carry into the exam

Setting. Ayemenem, a village in Kerala, in a Syrian Christian family that runs a pickle factory. The first chapter is titled “Paradise Pickles & Preserves”, after the family business. Roy grew up in Aymanam, and the novel uses her childhood landscape, but it is a novel, not a memoir. Keep that distinction ready (see the traps section).

Two time levels. The story moves between 1969, the year of the drowning, and 1993, when the twins meet again as adults.

Plot in two lines. Ammu, a divorced mother of the twins Estha and Rahel, loves Velutha, a Paravan carpenter whom the family regards as untouchable. In the same days, the twins’ English cousin Sophie Mol drowns when a boat capsizes, and the family’s response to both events destroys Velutha and scatters the household.

The detail exams ask. The Booker year (1997), the setting (Kerala), Velutha’s caste (Paravan), and the twins’ names. Britannica also notes that it became the biggest-selling book by a non-expatriate Indian author, a useful line if a question asks what made the novel a landmark.

Mind map: The God of Small Things mind map lays out the family tree and the 1969/1993 split on one page. Use it the night before the exam.

The Ministry of Utmost Happiness (2017): the sprawling second novel

Setting. Old Delhi and Kashmir, with stops in many other parts of India.

Plot in two lines. Anjum, born Aftab, lives for years in the Khwabgah, a house of hijras in Old Delhi, then moves to a graveyard and founds the Jannat Guest House, which gathers outcasts around her. A second thread follows Tilo (S. Tilottama), an architect, and the men who love her, including Musa Yeswi, a Kashmiri; it carries the Kashmir conflict into the book.

The detail exams ask. The year (2017), the gap (twenty years after the debut), and the prize status. It was on the 2017 Man Booker longlist and did not make the shortlist. Students who assume both novels won the Booker hand the examiner an easy mark.

Mind map: The Ministry of Utmost Happiness mind map sorts the large cast into its Delhi and Kashmir threads.

Characters: which novel do they belong to?

Character-to-novel matching is the easiest Roy question to set, and the easiest to lose if you have only read a summary of one novel. Learn this table in both directions.

Asked in exams: Roy questions from this site

These are real items from the previous year question pages on this site. Notice how many use Roy as a wrong option. Where the source page names the paper, it is given; otherwise the item is marked as a previous year question.

For more practice in the same format, work through the topic-wise English literature previous year questions and the full previous year question papers archive.

How the novel is built: form notes

Narrative technique questions on Roy are usually about two features: who tells the story and in what order.

Voice. The God of Small Things is told in the third person, but the narration stays close to the twins, especially Rahel, and borrows their childish logic. It is not a first-person novel, even though it often sounds like one.

Order. The narrative cuts between 1969 and 1993 and gives away the ending early. The suspense is about how and why, not what. If a question asks for a novel with a non-linear plot built around a single catastrophic day, Roy is a strong candidate.

Language play. Roy breaks and rebuilds English the way a child hears it. Phrases become capitalised Things (the Love Laws, the History House), words are fused or split, and legal Latin turns into nonsense: Ammu has no “Locusts Stand I”, the twins’ version of locus standi. These are the details that let you identify a passage as Roy’s when the author’s name is hidden.

The second novel. The Ministry of Utmost Happiness is looser and more crowded, mixing narration with letters, notes and documents, and moving between many centres of consciousness. The contrast with the tightly built first novel is a fair comparative question.

Where Roy sits in Indian Writing in English

Roy belongs to the generation that came after Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children (Booker 1981) changed what an Indian novel in English could sound like. She is often read next to Rushdie for her play with language, and next to Amitav Ghosh for the way her essays take on the state, development and the environment. Read our guides on Salman Rushdie and Amitav Ghosh with this one if you are revising the 1980s to 2000s together.

Two labels matter for exams. First, Roy is not a diasporic writer: she lives and writes in India, which is exactly why the site’s “diasporic writer” question leaves her out while including Kiran Desai. Second, her theme is caste as much as gender. If you have studied the older women novelists, such as Anita Desai, notice how Roy moves from the inner life of one woman to the social rules that decide whose life counts.

For the full list of Indian Booker results, which is a favourite chronology question, see who won the Booker first, and for the wider canon, the 100 key works of Indian literature.

Awards and firsts

The “first” worth remembering is a sales record, not a prize record: Britannica describes The God of Small Things as the biggest-selling book by a non-expatriate Indian author. Be careful with claims you may see elsewhere that she was the “first Indian” to win the Booker; Rushdie won in 1981, so any option built on that claim needs a second look.

Exam traps and the right answers

Self-test: five questions

FAQ

Which Arundhati Roy novel won the Booker Prize?

The God of Small Things, which won the Booker Prize in 1997. Her second novel, The Ministry of Utmost Happiness (2017), was longlisted but did not win.

Where is The God of Small Things set?

In Ayemenem, a village in Kerala, moving between 1969 and 1993.

Is Arundhati Roy a diasporic writer?

No. She lives and writes in India. A previous year question on this site excludes her from the diasporic label while including Meena Alexander and Kiran Desai.

Who are the main characters of The Ministry of Utmost Happiness?

Anjum (born Aftab), a hijra who founds the Jannat Guest House, and Tilo (S. Tilottama), an architect whose story carries the Kashmir thread, along with Musa Yeswi and Saddam Hussain.

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