On the novel’s 20th year.

[Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi]

Everyone is reading The God of Small Things in Ayemenem. This village in the backwaters of Kerala is the setting of the aforementioned book.

Arundhati Roy’s first novel will turn 20 next year and The Delhi Walla is in Ayemenem to celebrate the anniversary in advance. One afternoon I stopped 20 citizens of Ayemenem in the streets, and even knocked on the doors of their houses, requesting them to pose with my copy of the novel.

Nobody refused.

In the Country of Small Things

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20. (this photo is by an Ayemenem walla)