Children in a classroom at the school for Dalits (untouchables) that was built by Arundhati Roy's grandfather, Aymanam, Kerala, India..The God of Small Things (1997) is a politically charged novel by Indian author Arundhati Roy. It is a story about the childhood experiences of a pair of fraternal twins who become victims of circumstance. The book is a description of how the small things in life build up, translate into people's behavior and affect their lives. The book won the Booker Prize in 1997.