Arundhati Roy is an Indian author and activist born in 1961. She is best known for her novel The God of Small Things, published in 1997, which won the Man Booker Prize for Fiction. The novel explores the intersecting lives of an Indian family in Kerala and addresses themes of love, social divisions, and political turmoil through the lens of young twins Estha and Rahel. Roy grew up in Kerala and drew from her own experiences for the setting and characters in her acclaimed novel.

3. (born 24
November 1961) is an Indian author
and political activist who was best
known for the award-winning novel
The God of Small Things (1997) and
for her involvement in
environmental and human rights
causes. Roy’s novel became the
biggest-selling book by a no
expatriate Indian author and won
the 1998 Man Booker Prize for
Fiction.

4. EARLY LIFE AND BACKGROUND

5. Arundhati Roy was born in Shillong,
Meghalaya, India, to Ranjit Roy, a Bengali
Hindu tea planter and Mary Roy, a Malayali
Syrian Christian women's rights activist.
She spent her childhood in Ayemenem in
Kerala, and went to school at Corpus Christi,
Kottayam, followed by the Lawrence School,
Lovedale, in Nilgiris, Tamil Nadu. She then
studied architecture at the School of Planning
and Architecture, Delhi, where she met her first
husband, architect Gerard da Cunha.

6. Roy met her second husband, filmmaker
Pradip Krishen, in 1984, and played a village
girl in his award-winning movie Massey Sahib.
Until made financially secure by the success of
her novel The God of Small Things, she worked
various jobs, including running aerobics
classes at five-star hotels in New Delhi. Roy is
a cousin of prominent media personality
Prannoy Roy, the head of the leading Indian TV
media group NDTV. She lives in New Delhi.

7. WORKS

9. AWARDS

10. • Booker Prize – The God of Small Things
• National Film Award for Best Screenplay –
In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones
( screenplay)
• Special recognition as a Woman of Peace
• Sydney Peace Prize
• Sahitya Akademi Award - The Algebra of Infinite
Justice
• Norman Mailer Prize

11. THE GOD
OF
SMALL THINGS
A NOVEL
ARUNDHATI ROY

12. VOCABULARY

13. Ayemenem
An actual town in the Southern Indian state of Kerala, spelled
"Aymanam." Arundhati Roy spent her childhood there, and it is
the main setting for The God of Small Things.
Caste system
A social system that grades society based on castes, or classes.
In India, the class system is hereditary and "stratified according
to Hindu ritual purity." The highest caste are Brahmans and the
lowest are Untouchables.
Cochin
A major city in the South Indian state of Kerala, which hosts the
region's major airport. It is where the family goes to greet
Sophie Mol and Margaret Kochamma upon their arrival from
England.

14. History House
The abandoned house across the river, where Velutha lives with
Vellya Paapen and Kuttappen. Estha and Rahel become
obsessed with the History House and use the shadowy area
surrounding it as their haven from the Ayemenem House.
Kerala
One of the four states comprising Southern India, located on
the southwest tip of India, bordered to the west by the Arabian
Sea and on the east by the Ghat Mountains. Save flashbacks,
the entire story of The God of Small Things unfolds in Kerala.
Untouchables
Those in the caste system who are at the bottom. They are
considered unclean, especially by the more "pure" upper
castes.

15. PLOT

16. SETTING

18. CHARACTERS

19. • BABY KOCHAMMA
- selfish, self-centered, snippy, and just
downright mean
- Pappachi’s sister

20. •PAPPACHI
-is Estha and Rahel's grandfather, Ammu and
Chacko’s father
-once an Imperial Entomologist, which is a
frou-frou way of saying that he studied bugs for
the government. His biggest failure in life came
from his biggest triumph: he discovered a rare
breed of moth, but he didn't get credit or even
naming rights for his discovery
-beats his wife regularly

21. •MAMMACHI
- Chacko and Ammu's mother and Estha
and Rahel's grandmother
- nearly blind and plays a mean violin

22. •AMMU
- Pappachi amd Mammachi’s mother
- Estha and Rahel’s mother

23. • BABA
- Ammu's ex-husband
- Estha and Rahel's dad
- an alcoholic who tells a lot of lies for
apparently no reason

24. •RAHEL
- Estha’s twin sister
- who hides in the dirty airport curtains
when she doesn't want to say hi to
Sophie Mol.

25. • ESTHA (Esthappen Yako)
- Rahel’s twin brother
- born eighteen minutes before his twin

26. • CHACKO
- Ammu's brother, Mammachi's son, Rahel
and Estha's uncle, and Sophie Mol's father
- a young man, got all the family's love
and attention

27. • MARGARET KOCHAMMA
- Chacko's British ex-wife and Sophie Mol's
mother

28. •JOE
- Margaret Kochamma's second husband
- Sophie Mol regards as her true dad and
favorite person in the world

29. • SOPHIE MOL
- the daughter of Chacko and Margaret
Kochama
.

30. •VELUTHA
- Vellya Paapen's younger son
- Estha and Rahel's best friend

31. SYMBOLISM and IMAGERY

32. • The History House
• Pappachi’s Moth
• Sex

33. GENRE

34. Family Drama / Literary Fiction

35. THEME

36. Love Laws

37. QUOTES

38. “ Anything can happen to
anyone, and it’s best to be
prepared.” - Estha

39. “…who should be loved,
and how. And how
much.”

40. “Either way, change will
come. It could be bloody, or
it could be beautiful. It
depends on us.”