Novelist Arundhati Roy: India's economic success a 'lie' Arundhati Roy (born 24 November 1961) is an Indian novelist

Arundhati Roy
Arundhati Roy speaking at Harvard University in April 2010.
Born	24 November 1961 (1961-11-24) (age 49) Shillong, Meghalaya, India
Occupation	Novelist, essayist, activist
Nationality	Indian
Period	1997–Present
Notable work(s)	The God of Small Things
Notable award(s)	Man Booker Prize (1997) Sydney Peace Prize (2004)

A new compilation of activist essays by Arundhati Roy was recently launched amidst voices of protest. Nupur Sharma. Last week saw the release of “Broken Republic”, a Penguin India publication that consolidates three essays by the

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2 June 2011 Last updated at 00:34 GMT

India is said to be one of the great economic success stories of modern times: an emerging power and the world's biggest democracy.

But the Booker Prize-winning novelist Arundhati Roy tells a different story.

Speaking to the BBC's Newsnight, she says tens of thousands of the country's poorest people are suffering at the hands of corrupt governments bought and sold by big corporations.

Arundhati Roy (born 24 November 1961) is an Indian novelist. She won the Booker Prize in 1997 for her novel, The God of Small Things, and has also written two screenplays and several collections of essays. Her writings on various social, environmental and political issues have been a subject of major controversy in India.

Awards

Arundhati Roy was awarded the 1997 Booker Prize for her novel The God of Small Things. The award carried a prize of about US $30,000^[59] and a citation that noted, 'The book keeps all the promises that it makes.'^[60] Prior to this, she won the National Film Award for Best Screenplay in 1989, for the screenplay of In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones.^[61]

In 2002, she won the Lannan Foundation's Cultural Freedom Award for her work "about civil societies that are adversely affected by the world’s most powerful governments and corporations," in order "to celebrate her life and her ongoing work in the struggle for freedom, justice and cultural diversity."^[62]

Roy was awarded the Sydney Peace Prize in May 2004 for her work in social campaigns and her advocacy of non-violence.

In January 2006, she was awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award, a national award from India's Academy of Letters, for her collection of essays on contemporary issues, The Algebra of Infinite Justice, but she declined to accept it "in protest against the Indian Government toeing the US line by 'violently and ruthlessly pursuing policies of brutalisation of industrial workers, increasing militarisation and economic neo-liberalisation.'"^[63]

Works

Books

• The God of Small Things. Flamingo, 1997. ISBN 0-00-655068-1.
• The End of Imagination. Kottayam: D.C. Books, 1998. ISBN 81-7130-867-8.
• The Cost of Living. Flamingo, 1999. ISBN 0-375-75614-0. Contains the essays "The Greater Common Good" and "The End of Imagination."
• The Greater Common Good. Bombay: India Book Distributor, 1999. ISBN 81-7310-121-3.
• The Algebra of Infinite Justice. Flamingo, 2002. ISBN 0-00-714949-2. Collection of essays: "The End of Imagination," "The Greater Common Good," "Power Politics", "The Ladies Have Feelings, So...," "The Algebra of Infinite Justice," "War is Peace," "Democracy," "War Talk", and "Come September."
• Power Politics. Cambridge: South End Press, 2002. ISBN 0-89608-668-2.
• War Talk. Cambridge: South End Press, 2003. ISBN 0-89608-724-7.
• Foreword to Noam Chomsky, For Reasons of State. 2003. ISBN 1-56584-794-6.
• An Ordinary Person's Guide To Empire. Consortium, 2004. ISBN 0-89608-727-1.
• Public Power in the Age of Empire Seven Stories Press, 2004. ISBN 1-58322-682-6.
• The Checkbook and the Cruise Missile: Conversations with Arundhati Roy. Interviews by David Barsamian. Cambridge: South End Press, 2004. ISBN 0-89608-710-7.
• Introduction to 13 December, a Reader: The Strange Case of the Attack on the Indian Parliament. New Delhi, New York: Penguin, 2006. ISBN 0-14-310182-X.
• The Shape of the Beast: Conversations with Arundhati Roy. New Delhi: Penguin, Viking, 2008. ISBN 978-0-670-08207-0.
• Listening to Grasshoppers: Field Notes on Democracy. New Delhi: Penguin, Hamish Hamilton, 2009. ISBN 978-0-670-08379-4.

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