God of Small Things (Harper Collins Publishers)

Arundhati Roy's phenomenal debut novel, now in paperback, which beat the favourites to the 1997 Booker Prize, and emerged as something of a surprise winner. A witty and magical piece of work, it describes the lives of two twins growing up in a factory in Kerala, southern India amidst an extended and chaotically dysfunctional family. "Like a devotionally built temple, "The God Of Small Things" builds a massive, interlocking structure of fine, intensely felt details." John Updike, "New Yorker". Roy has intimated that this may be her first and last novel.