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Released in 1997, The God of Small Things quickly skyrocketed Arundhati Roy to globally critical and popular acclaim. Her first (and to date only) novel won the 1997 Booker Prize, one of the most prestigious awards at the English-language literary universe. Interestingly, Roy was educated as an architect and had never before considered herself a novelist.

The novel, which Roy composed between 1992 and 1996, has sold more than 6 million copies and has been translated into 40 languages. Paradoxically, not bad for a beginner effort.

The storyline centers on Estha and Rahel, fraternal boy and girl twins residing with their divorced mother, Ammu, along with her loved ones. The central events of the novel involve the fateful visit of their half-English cousin, Sophie Mol, along with also her mother Margaret Kochamma. We know in the beginning of the novel that Sophie Mol drowns in the river from the household's house. The rest of the novel pieces together the events which led up to her passing and the aftermath which spanned, darting back and forth between Estha and Rahel's youth and adulthood in the procedure.

While telling the story of Sophie Mol's departure, the novel resonates with bigger political and social troubles. The society that our personalities occupy remains largely formed by the caste system, which characterized social classes in India and ordered the standing every person held. The Indian Constitution of 1949 outlawed the caste system and discrimination based on social standing, but it is pretty clear during the novel that there are definite social rules which persist which still need to be obeyed -- particularly in terms of who's permitted to interact with whom. The novel pays particular attention to what the narrator calls the "Love Laws," which translate the caste system to research who's permitted to appreciate whom, how, and how much. The violation of these social rules is fundamental to the unraveling of the seemingly fine, easy life that Estha and Rahel expertise as kids also has an integral role in forming the conditions which lead up to Sophie Mol's passing.

The growth of the lower classes and the toppling of the top classes is a concept in the center of these political ideologies which gives hope to a number of the novel's characters and matches others with dread. She has written several political articles and was even awarded the Sydney Peace Prize at 2004. Overall, there is a whole lot to untangle in this book, but Roy's stunning writing makes the entire travel a pleasure -- even in the moments when this book is at its most heart-wrenching.

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