Arundhati Roy

From ArticleWorld

Arundhathi Roy was born in India. She spent her childhood in Kerala and at the age of sixteen left for Delhi. Interestingly, she chose to live in a small hut and made a living selling glass bottles. She went on to study architecture at the Delhi School of Architecture. However, she did not pursue architecture. She tried her hand at writing instead.

Her work

Initially a fiction writer, Ms.Roy evolved into a non-fiction writer. Her first book, The God of Small Things , is said to be partly autobiographical. She wrote the screen play for two films, In Which Annie Gives it Those Ones and Electric Moon . The Banyan Tree , another one of her works, was made into a television serial. Also, she played the role of a country girl in the Indian movie Massey Sahib . She starred in the movie In Which Annie Gives it Those Ones , besides writing the screenplay. Roy’s The End of Imagination , was a reaction tothe Indian government's nuclear policies. She also expressed her strong opinions on the massive hydroelectric dam projects in the central and western states of India( Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat). Published in the collection The Cost of Living it created much awareness among her readers. She wrote the foreword to For Reasons of State (2003) by Noam Chomsky. She feels that the government is not considiring the damage done to some 500,000 people who will face submergence, should a dam be built. This dam in question is a seven-billion-dollar project and is touted as a step towards modernisation. She Particicpated in the World Tribunal on Iraq in 2005.

Awards, recognition

She won the Booker Prize for her first novel in 1997. She was imprisoned for a day in 2002 because her actions were found to be in contempt of the court. The Sydney Peace Prize was awarded to her in May 2004 for her social campaigns. She was awarded the Sahitya Akademi award in January 2006 for her collection of essays, The Algebra of Infinite Justice , although she declined it. Few people display such fierce independence and loyalty to their principles. She is not just a novelist, but uses her pen to criticize the anti-environmental steps taken by the government.