And then we meet the two Miss Jebeens: the first a child born in Srinagar and buried in its overcrowded Martyrs' Graveyard the second found at midnight, abandoned on a concrete sidewalk in the heart of New Delhi. We meet Tilo's landlord, a former suitor, now an intelligence officer posted to Kabul.

We encounter the odd, unforgettable Tilo and the men who loved her-including Musa, sweetheart and ex-sweetheart, lover and ex-lover their fates are as entwined as their arms used to be and always will be. The tale begins with Anjum-who used to be Aftab-unrolling a threadbare Persian carpet in a city graveyard she calls home. Its heroes are people who have been broken by the world they live in and then rescued, patched together by acts of love-and by hope. Each of its characters is indelibly, tenderly rendered. It is an aching love story and a decisive remonstration, a story told in a whisper, in a shout, through unsentimental tears and sometimes with a bitter laugh. It takes us on an intimate journey of many years across the Indian subcontinent-from the cramped neighborhoods of Old Dehli and the roads of the new city to the mountains and valleys of Kashmir and beyond, where war is peace and peace is war. 2017 Man Booker Prize Longlist 2018 Women's Prize for Fiction Longlist The Ministry of Utmost Happiness is a dazzling new novel by the internationally celebrated author of The God of Small Things.

The ministry of utmost happiness author