The Man Booker Prize Winner 1997 About the Book: The God of Small Things Set in Kerala in the 1960s, The God of Small Things is about two children, Estha and Rahel, and the shocking consequences of a pivotal event in their young lives, the accidental death-by-drowning of a visiting English cousin. In magical and poetic language, the novel paints a vivid picture of life in a small rural Indian town, the thoughts and feelings of the two small children, and the complexity and hypocrisy of the adults in their world. It is also a poignant lesson in the destructive power of the caste system and moral and political bigotry in general. About the Author: Arundhati Roy Arundhati Roy was born in 1961 in Kerala. She won the Booker Prize in 1997 for her first novel The God of Small Things. Roy is a well known peace activist and she was awarded the Sydney Peace Prize in May, 2004, for her work in social campaigns and advocacy of non-violence. She lives in Delhi.