Arundhati Roy

All you want to know about Arundhati Roy

Arundhati Roy

Arundhati Roy speaking at the 2007 World Tribunal on Iraq.
Born November 24, 1961
Shillong, Meghalaya, India
Occupation Novelist, essayist
Nationality Flag of India India
Writing period 1997-present

Suzanna Arundhati Roy[1] (born November 24, 1961) is an Indian writer and activist who won the Booker Prize in 1997 for her first novel, The God of Small Things and in 2002, the Lannan Cultural Freedom Prize.

Contents

Biography

Early life

Roy was born in Shillong, Meghalaya[2] to a Keralite Syrian Christian mother, the women's rights activist Mary Roy, and a Bengali father, a tea planter by profession. She spent her childhood in Ayemenem or Aymanam in Kerala, and went to school at Corpus Christi, Kottayam, followed by the Lawrence School, Lovedale in the Nilgiris, Tamil Nadu. She then studied architecture at the School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi, where she met her first husband, architect Gerard DaCunha.

Works

Roy first attracted attention when she criticised Shekhar Kapur's film Bandit Queen, based on the life of Phoolan Devi, charging Kapur with exploiting Devi and misrepresenting both her life and its meaning.[3]

The God of Small Things, cover
The God of Small Things, cover

Roy began writing her first novel, The God of Small Things, in 1992, completing it in 1996. The book is semi-autobiographical and a major part captures her childhood experiences in Ayemenem or Aymanam[citation needed]. The book received the 1997 Booker Prize for Fiction and was listed as one of the New York Times Notable Books of the Year for 1997.[4] The book reached fourth position on the New York Times Bestsellers list for Independent Fiction.[5] She received half a million pounds as an advance, and rights to the book were sold in 21 countries.

The God of Small Things received good reviews[6], including one from John Updike in The New Yorker.[7] However, Carmen Callil, chair of the Booker judges panel in 1996, called The God of Small Things "an execrable book" and said it should never have reached the shortlist.[8]

Roy wrote the screenplays for In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones (1989) and Electric Moon (1992) in which she also appeared as a performer, and a television serial The Banyan Tree. She also wrote the documentary DAM/AGE: A Film with Arundhati Roy (2002).

In early 2007, Roy announced she would begin work on a second novel.[9]

Activism and advocacy

The God of Small Things is the only novel written by Roy. She has since devoted herself solely to nonfiction and politics, publishing two more collections of essays, as well as working for social causes. She is a spokesperson of the anti-globalization/alter-globalization movement and a vehement critic of neo-imperialism and of the global policies of the United States. She also criticizes India's nuclear weapons policies and the approach to industrialization and rapid development as currently being practiced in India, including the Narmada Dam project and the power company Enron's activities in India.

Support for Kashmiri separatism

Roy attended a massive pro-Independence rally by Kashmiri separatists at the UN's office in Srinagar. [10]

In an interview with Times of India, Arundhati Roy expressed her support for the independence of Kashmir from India after massive demonstrations there in favor of independence took place. She described the rallies as a clear sign that Kashmiris desire independence from India, and not union with India. [11]

Sardar Sarovar Project

Roy has campaigned along with activist Medha Patkar against the Narmada dam project, saying that the dam will displace half a million people, with little or no compensation, and will not provide the projected irrigation, drinking water and other benefits.[12] Roy donated her Booker prize money as well as royalties from her books on the project to the Narmada Bachao Andolan.[13]

Arundhati Roy's opposition to the Narmada Dam project has been criticised as "anti-Gujarat" by Congress and BJP leaders in Gujarat.[14][15]

In 2002, Roy responded to a contempt notice issued against her by the Indian Supreme Court with an affidavit saying the court's decision to initiate the contempt proceedings based on an unsubstantiated and flawed petition, while refusing to inquire into allegations of corruption in military contracting deals pleading an overload of cases, indicated a "disquieting inclination" by the court to silence criticism and dissent using the power of contempt.[16] The court found Roy's statement, which she refused to disavow or apologize for, constituted criminal contempt and sentenced her to a "symbolic" one day's imprisonment and fined Roy Rs. 2500.[17] Roy served the jail sentence for a single day and opted to pay the fine rather than serve an additional three months' imprisonment for default.[18]

Environmental historian, Ramachandra Guha, has been critical of Roy's Narmada dam activism. While acknowledging her "courage and commitment" to the cause, Guha writes that her advocacy is hyperbolic and self-indulgent,[19] "Ms. Roy's tendency to exaggerate and simplify, her Manichean view of the world, and her shrill hectoring tone, have given a bad name to environmental analysis".[20] He faults Roy's criticism of Supreme Court judges who were hearing a petition brought by the Narmada Bachao Andolan as careless and irresponsible.

Roy counters that her writing is intentional in its passionate, hysterical tone - "I am hysterical. I'm screaming from the bloody rooftops. And he and his smug little club are going 'Shhhh... you'll wake the neighbours!' I want to wake the neighbours, that's my whole point. I want everybody to open their eyes".[13]

Gail Omvedt and Roy have had a fierce discussions, in open letters, on Roy's strategy for the Narmada Dam movement. Though the activists disagree on whether to demand stopping the dam building all together (Roy) or searching for intermediate alternatives (Omvedt), the exchange has mostly been, though critical, constructive. [21]

United States foreign policy

Roy has strongly criticised the U.S. led invasion of Afghanistan in reaction to the September 11 attacks, decrying its undermining of international law and institutions. She disputes U.S. claims of being a peaceful and freedom-loving nation, listing the numerous armed conflicts the U.S. has been involved in since the Second World War[22] as well as its previous support for the Taliban movement and its support for the Northern Alliance (whose "track record is not very different from the Taliban's"). Noting the interests of arms and oil industries in formulating foreign policy, Roy doubts the U.S.'s stated goals of restoring democracy in Afghanistan and argues that its humanitarian efforts there are a cynical public relations exercise. While condemning the 9/11 attacks, she writes that its response has legitimised violence as a political instrument and aided governments around the world in suppressing freedom and civil rights.[22]

Her views were criticized by Ian Buruma, who wrote: "The snobbery of her tone alone betrays the lingering, if perhaps unconscious, influence in India of British lefties from the end of the Raj. It is the language of the Bloomsbury drawing room. You could well imagine Bertrand Russell taking this line."[23]

In May 2003 she delivered a speech entitled "Instant-Mix Imperial Democracy" at the Riverside Church in New York City. In it she described the United States as a global empire that reserves the right to bomb any of its subjects at any time, deriving its legitimacy directly from God. The speech was an indictment of the U.S. actions relating to the Iraq War.[24] In June 2005 she took part in the World Tribunal on Iraq. In March 2006, Roy criticized US President George W. Bush's visit to India.[25]

India's nuclear weaponisation

In response to India's testing of nuclear weapons in Pokhran, Rajasthan, Roy wrote The End of Imagination (1998), a critique of the Indian government's nuclear policies. It was published in her collection The Cost of Living (1999), in which she also crusaded against India's massive hydroelectric dam projects in the central and western states of Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat.

Criticism of Israel

In August 2006, Roy signed a letter written by Professor Steve Trevillion calling Israel's attacks on Lebanon a "war crime" and accused Israel of "state terror".[26] In 2007, Roy was one of more than 100 artists and writers who signed an open letter initiated by Queers Undermining Israeli Terrorism and the South West Asian, North African Bay Area Queers (SWANABAQ) and calling on the San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival "to honor calls for an international boycott of Israeli political and cultural institutions, by discontinuing Israeli consulate sponsorship of the LGBT film festival and not cosponsoring events with the Israeli consulate."[3][4]

2001 Indian Parliament attack

Roy has raised questions about the investigation into the 2001 Indian Parliament attack and the trial of the accused. She has called for the death sentence of Mohammad Afzal to be stayed while a parliamentary enquiry into these questions are conducted and denounced press coverage of the trial.[27] The BJP has criticised Roy for what it alleges is defence of a terrorist that does not lie in the national interest.[28][29]

The Muthanga 'Incident'

In 2003, the Adivasi Gothra Maha Sabha, a social movement for adivasi land rights in Kerala, organized a major land occupation of a piece of land of a former Eucalyptus plantation in the Muthanga Wildlife Reserve, on the border of Kerala and Karnataka. After 48 days, a police force was sent into the area to evict the occupants--one participant of the movement and a policeman were killed, and the leaders of the movement were arrested. Arundhati Roy travelled to the area, visited the movement's leaders in jail, and wrote an open letter to the then Chief Minister of Kerala, A.K. Antony, saying "You have blood on your hands." [30]

Awards

Arundhati Roy was awarded the 1997 Booker Prize for her fiction The God of Small Things. The award carried a prize of about US $30,000[31] and a citation that noted: 'The book keeps all the promises that it makes.' [32]

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" and "to celebrate her life and her ongoing work in the struggle for freedom, justice and cultural diversity."[33]

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 for her collection of essays on contemporary issues, The Algebra of Infinite Justice, but she declined to accept it[34].

Criticisms and controversies

Balbir Punj, a BJP member of Parliament, criticized Roy's article titled Democracy: Who's she when she's at home?, on the 2002 Gujarat Violence, pointing out a factual error in it and calling the article "dishonest" and a "hate charter against India and the Sangh parivar".[35] Roy acknowledged the factual error and apologized to the family referred to in the erroneous statement but said that such errors do not alter the substance of her own as well as others' accounts of the violence.[36]

Bibliography

Books

Essays, Speeches and Articles

Personal life

Roy met her second husband, filmmaker Pradip Krishen, in 1984, and became involved in film-making under his influence. She played a village girl in the award-winning movie Massey Sahib.

Roy is a niece of prominent media personality Prannoy Roy(Arundhathi Roy's father and Prannoy are brothers)[37] [38] and lives in New Delhi.

References

  1. ^ Anthony Cardinale (2004-09-09). "Create beauty in order to keep fighting, writer-activist Roy says", The Buffalo News. 
  2. ^ Arundhati Roy - English Writer: The South Asian Literary Recordings Project (Library of Congress New Delhi Office)
  3. ^ "Arundhati Roy: A 'small hero'", BBC News Online (2002-03-06). 
  4. ^ "Notable Books of the Year 1997". New York Times (1997-12-07). Retrieved on 2007-03-21.
  5. ^ "Best Sellers Plus". New York Times (1998-01-25). Retrieved on 2007-03-21.
  6. ^ TRUAX, ALICE (May 25, 1997), "A Silver Thimble in Her Fist", New York Times, <http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/05/25/reviews/970525.25truaxt.html> 
  7. ^ [1]
  8. ^ "Arundhati Roy: A 'small hero'" (in English), BBC News Online (6 March 2002). Retrieved on 2006-12-08. 
  9. ^ Randeep Ramesh (March 10, 2007). "An activist returns to the novel" (in English). Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved on 2007-03-13.
  10. ^ | Arundhati slammed for demanding Kashmir’s freedom
  11. ^ http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Kashmir_needs_freedom_from_India_Arundhati_Roy/articleshow/3378687.cms Kashmir needs Freedom from India]"Kashmir needs Freedom from India". Times of India (August 18, 2008).
  12. ^ Roy, Arundhati (May 22 - June 04, 1999), "The Greater Common Good", Frontline (magazine) 16(11), <http://www.hinduonnet.com/fline/fl1611/16110040.htm> 
  13. ^ a b SCIMITARS IN THE SUN, Frontline, Volume 18 - Issue 01, Jan. 06 - 19, 2001
  14. ^ "Youth Congress workers burn Arundhati's book", Times of India (23 July 1999). Retrieved on 2006-12-08. 
  15. ^ The Telegraph - Calcutta : Nation
  16. ^ "Arundhati’s contempt: Supreme Court writes her a prison sentence", Indian Express (2002-03-07). V. Venkatesan and Sukumar Muralidharan (August 18 - 31, 2001). "Of contempt and legitimate dissent", Frontline. 
  17. ^ In re: Arundhati Roy.... Contemner, JUDIS (Supreme Court of India bench, Justices G.B. Pattanaik & R.P. Sethi March 6, 2002).
  18. ^ Roy, Arundhati (2002-03-07). "Statement by Arundhati Roy". Friends of River Narmada. Retrieved on 2007-03-21.
  19. ^ Ramachandra Guha, The Arun Shourie of the left, The Hindu, November 26, 2000
  20. ^ Ramachandra Guha, Perils of extremism, The Hindu, December 17, 2000
  21. ^ Gail Omvedt'S Open Letter To Arundhati Roy
  22. ^ a b Arundhati Roy, "'Brutality smeared in peanut butter' Why America must stop the war now." Guardian Unlimited 10/23/01.
  23. ^ The Anti-American by Ian Buruma, The New Republic (Archived link)
  24. ^ Instant-Mix Imperial Democracy (Buy One, Get One Free), speech by Arundhati Roy at The Riverside Church, May 13, 2003. Audio and video
  25. ^ Roy, Arundhati (2006-02-28). "George Bush go home" (in en), The Hindu. Retrieved on 2007-03-21. 
  26. ^ "War crimes and Lebanon" (August 3, 2006).
  27. ^ Arundhati Roy, 'And His Life Should Become Extinct', Outlook, Oct 30, 2006
  28. ^ [2]
  29. ^ BJP flays Arundhati for 'defending' Afzal, The Hindu, October 28, 2006
  30. ^ http://www.hinduonnet.com/fline/fl2006/stories/20030328002104500.htm)
  31. ^ "Arundhati Roy interviewed by David Barsamian". The South Asian (September 2001).
  32. ^ "Previous winners - 1997". Booker Prize Foundation. Retrieved on 2007-03-21.
  33. ^ "2002 Lannan Cultural Freedom Prize awarded to Arundhati Roy". Lannan Foundation. Retrieved on 2007-03-21.
  34. ^ Sahitya Akademi Award: Arundhati Roy Rejects Honor
  35. ^ outlookindia.com
  36. ^ Roy, Arundhati (May 27, 2002), "To the Jaffri Family, An Apology", Outlook (magazine), <http://www.outlookindia.com/rants.asp?type=single&id=20020527133759>. Retrieved on 21 March 2007 
  37. ^ Re: eigenvalue calculators and Arundhati Roy
  38. ^ Rediff On The NeT: Mary Roy celebrates her daughter's victory

See also

External links

Biographical material

Ch'ien, Evelyn Nien-Ming. "The Politics of Design." In Weird English. Cambridge, Ma: Harvard UP, 2004.

Works, speeches

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:

Other

v • d • e
Man Booker Prize for Fiction
1969–1980

P. H. Newby (1969) · Bernice Rubens (1970) · V. S. Naipaul (1971) · John Berger (1972) · James Gordon Farrell (1973) · Nadine Gordimer / Stanley Middleton (1974) · Ruth Prawer Jhabvala (1975) · David Storey (1976) · Paul Scott (1977) · Iris Murdoch (1978) · Penelope Fitzgerald (1979) · William Golding (1980)
1981–2000

Salman Rushdie (1981) · Thomas Keneally (1982) · J. M. Coetzee (1983) · Anita Brookner (1984) · Keri Hulme (1985) · Kingsley Amis (1986) · Penelope Lively (1987) · Peter Carey (1988) · Kazuo Ishiguro (1989) · A. S. Byatt (1990) · Ben Okri (1991) · Michael Ondaatje / Barry Unsworth (1992) · Roddy Doyle (1993) · James Kelman (1994) · Pat Barker (1995) · Graham Swift (1996) · Arundhati Roy (1997) · Ian McEwan (1998) · J. M. Coetzee (1999) · Margaret Atwood (2000)
2001–present

Peter Carey (2001) · Yann Martel (2002) · DBC Pierre (2003) · Alan Hollinghurst (2004) · John Banville (2005) · Kiran Desai (2006) · Anne Enright (2007)
v • d • e
Sydney Peace Prize laureates

Muhammad Yunus (1998) · Desmond Tutu (1999) · Xanana Gusmão (2000) · William Deane (2001) · Mary Robinson (2002) · Hanan Ashrawi (2003) · Arundhati Roy (2004) · Olara Otunnu (2005) · Irene Khan (2006) · Hans Blix (2007)


Persondata
NAME Roy, Arundhati
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Roy, Suzanna Arundhati
SHORT DESCRIPTION Indian novelist, essayist
DATE OF BIRTH November 24, 1961
PLACE OF BIRTH Shillong, Meghalaya
DATE OF DEATH
PLACE OF DEATH
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arundhati_Roy"

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