Arundhati Roy
Arundhati Roy is an acclaimed Indian author and activist, best known for her debut novel, *The God of Small Things*, which won the Booker Prize in 1997. Born in Kerala to a Bengali Hindu father and a Keralite Syrian Christian mother, she pursued a diverse path that included architecture and screenwriting before turning to fiction. Her literary work often reflects her personal experiences and addresses pressing social and political issues in India, notably through her extensive nonfiction writings.
In addition to her novels, Roy has authored numerous essays and books that critique government policies and advocate for social justice, including her response to India's nuclear tests and opposition to large dam projects. Her activism has led to legal challenges, including a conviction for contempt of court, illustrating the contentious nature of her views. Despite facing backlash, she has received several prestigious awards for her literary and humanitarian efforts, including the Sydney Peace Prize and the PEN Pinter Prize. Roy continues to engage with topics such as Kashmir's conflict and environmental issues, making her a significant voice in contemporary Indian literature and activism.
Arundhati Roy
Indian screenwriter, nonfiction writer, novelist, and essayist.
- Born: November 24, 1961
- Place of Birth: Shillong, Meghalaya, India
Biography
Suzanna Arundhati Roy is the daughter of Rajib Roy, a Bengali Hindu tea plantation manager, and Mary Roy, a Keralite Syrian Christian. She and her brother, Lalith, grew up in Aymanam, Kerala, India, and she left home at age sixteen for a bohemian life in Delhi, where she lived in a hut and sold empty bottles for money. She was attending classes at the Delhi School of Architecture in the late 1970’s when she met architect Gerard Da Cunha, who became her common-law husband. Roy stepped away from architecture a few years later when she was drawn to screenwriting, influenced by her husband, filmmaker Pradeep Kisehn, whom she met in 1984 and married around 1993.
While writing screenplays for television and film, Roy began work in 1992 on the novel The God of Small Things. When the book was published in 1997, she found immediate success. The novel, in part autobiographical, reveals some of Roy’s childhood experiences. The book became an international best-seller and won the esteemed Booker Prize. One year after this success, Roy wrote an essay, “The End of Imagination,” in critical response to India’s testing of nuclear weapons in Rajasthan. The essay was published in book form in 1998 and was included in her book The Cost of Living (1999), a collection of essays that take on the Indian government and social causes. Roy previously had written in opposition to some of India’s proposed dam projects when in 2002, India’s supreme court convicted her of contempt of court for her assertion that the court was trying to suppress protests against the Narmada Dam Project. However, she was only required to serve one day in prison.
Between 1999 and 2017, Roy penned another ten books of nonfiction, most of them relating to the sociopolitical conditions she witnessed in India. She spent some time traversing central India with a Maoist group opposing government mineral-resource extraction, an experience that inspired Walking with the Comrades (2011). The conflict in Kashmir also became a particular topic of interest to her.
In 2017, two decades after The God of Small Things appeared, Roy published her sophomore novel, The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, to mixed critical reviews. Nonetheless, it drew comparisons to works by famed Latin American magical realist Gabriel García Márquez and fellow Indian-born writer Salman Rushdie. Elements of her activist nonfiction essays could be discerned within the plot, as several critics noted. In 2019, Roy published My Seditious Heart, a five-volume collection of her nonfiction. She followed this with Azadi: Freedom, Fascism, Fiction in 2020.
In October 2023, the writer was charged with sedition for a speech she gave in 2013 supporting Kashmir's liberation. Roy has been outspoken about India's problems, including violence during elections, and has faced extreme backlash for her views.
Roy was presented the Grand Prize of the World Academy of Culture in 2002 and the Sydney Peace Prize for her work toward nonviolence and in social causes in May 2004. She has also been the recipient of the Lannan Award for Cultural Freedom, and in 2005 she participated in the world tribunal in Iraq. She received the 2024 PEN Pinter Prize, which is given to writers in the United Kingdom, Ireland, and the Commonwealth of Nations who have shown fierce determination. In August 2024, she and Toomaj Salehi shared the Disturbing the Peace Award, which is given to writers who put themselves in harm's way. Roy has repeatedly donated her award money to charitable organizations.
Author Works
Long Fiction:
The God of Small Things, 1997
The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, 2017
Nonfiction:
The End of Imagination, 1998
The Greater Common Good, 1999
The Cost of Living, 1999
Power Politics, 2001 (also known as Power Politics: The Reincarnation of Rumpelstiltskin)
The Algebra of Infinite Justice, 2002
War Talk, 2003
Globalization Dissent: Conversations with Arundhati Roy, 2004 (with David Barsamian)
An Ordinary Person's Guide to Empire, 2004
Checkbook and the Cruise Missile: Conversations with Arundhati Roy, 2004 (with (David Barsamian)
Public Power in the Age of Empire, 2004
The Shape of the Beast: Conversations with Arundhati Roy., 2008
Field Notes on Democracy: Listening to Grasshoppers, 2009
Broken Republic: Three Essays, 2011
Walking with the Comrades, 2011
Capitalism: A Ghost Story, 2014
Things that Can and Cannot Be Said: Essays and Conversations, 2016 (with John Cusack)
My Seditious Heart, 2019
Azadi: Freedom, Fascism, Fiction., 2020
Bibliography
Acocella, Joan. "Arundhati Roy Returns to Fiction, in Fury." The New Yorker, 5–12 June 2017, www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/06/05/arundhati-roy-returns-to-fiction-in-fury. Accessed 2 Oct. 2024.
Deb, Siddhartha. "Arundhati Roy, the Not-So-Reluctant Renegade." The New York Times Magazine, 5 Mar. 2014, www.nytimes.com/2014/03/09/magazine/arundhati-roy-the-not-so-reluctant-renegade.html. Accessed 2 Oct. 2024.
Dillet, Benoît, and Tara Puri. The Political Space of Art: The Dardenne Brothers, Arundhati Roy, Ai Weiwei and Burial. Rowman & Littlefield International, 2016. Experiments/on the Political. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost), search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=1236811&site=ehost-live. Accessed 16 Jun. 2017.
Ghosh, Ranjan, and Antonia Navarro-Tejero, editors. Globalizing Dissent: Essays on Arundhati Roy. Routledge, 2009.
Goyal, Yogita. "A Novelist with a Fury: Reading Arundhati Roy in the Present." Los Angeles Review of Books, 20 May 2024, lareviewofbooks.org/article/a-novelist-with-a-fury-reading-arundhati-roy-in-the-present/. Accessed 2 Oct. 2024.
Sehgal, Parul. "Arundhati Roy's Fascinating Mess." The Atlantic, July–Aug. 2017, pp. 36–38. Literary Reference Center Plus, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=lkh&AN=123544912&site=lrc-plus. Accessed 16 Jun. 2017.