Biography of Arundhati Roy

(1961)


Born in 1961 in West Bengal, Arundhati Roy grew up in Kerala. She was trained as an architect at the Delhi School of Architecture.

Arundhati Roy is the author of 'The God of Small Things', which won the Booker Prize in 1998. She has also published essays on India's massive dam and irrigation projects and India's successful detonation of a nuclear bomb. Her most recent book of essays is Power Politics'. Ms. Roy is an outspoken critic of India's nuclear weapons testing and controversial environmental policies.

Initially, Arundhati Roy used to write scripts for Pradip Kishen's 'Electric Moon'. Media attention came when she spoke out in support of Phoolan Devi, who, she felt had been exploited by Shekhar Kapur's film “Bandit Queen'. Arundhati Roy also went to jail in protest against the indiscrimination meted out to the people of Narmada valley.

She says: "A feminist is a woman who negotiates herself into a position where she has choices.............”