Arundhati R0y is an Indian novelist, columnist and activist.
Roy spent her childhood in Kerala and didn’t go to school till she was 10, left home at age 16. She studied at the Delhi School of Architecture. There she met her first husband. They eventually left for Goa where they sold cake on the beach.
She was soon back in Delhi, where she began working with the National Institute of Urban Affairs, while living in a barsati near the slum settlement around the Nizamuddin dargah.
Arundhati Roy. AFP Photo
While she was cycling down to work, she was spotted by film director Pradeep Krishen who signed her up for his film, Massey Saab. She later married Krishen. She worked many jobs, including running aerobics classes at five-star hotels in New Delhi
Arundhati Roy also wrote screenplays for television and film. She published a criticism of the acclaimed film Bandit Queen based on the life of Phoolan Devi; the controversy it generated resulted in a lawsuit against her.
In 1997 she wrote the Booker winner The God of Small Things in 1997, which invited charges of anti-Communism and obscenity.
She is now a writer of nonfiction and an anti-globalisation activist who has lent her voice to many causes. She was awarded the Sydney Peace Prize in 2004.
Stands taken by her:
• Anti-displacement due to big dams — Sardar Sarovar Project, Narmada Dam.
• Anti-India’s nuclearisation
• Pro Kashmiri separatists
• Pro Naxals
