The God of Small Things
Arunhati Roy
This book is set in Kerala, India, and I read it whilst I was on holiday there. I was staying in a series of up-market tourist resorts that have sprung up like gated palaces amongst the villages and waterways of coastal Kerala. It is a haunting, lyrical novel and reading it taught me much about the real nature of Keralan life and culture. It prompted me to escape my luxury compound and explore, and it made me realise that tourists like me, and the resort where we all stay (which is alluded to in the novel) are as much a problem as a solution for modern Kerala. 14