Five months after "The God of Small Things" hit the stands, Arundhati Roy took the stage and accepted Britain's most prestigious literary honor, the Booker Prize. This was a day of multiple firsts: not only was Roy the first non-expatriate Indian...
[more]Five months after "The God of Small Things" hit the stands, Arundhati Roy took the stage and accepted Britain's most prestigious literary honor, the Booker Prize. This was a day of multiple firsts: not only was Roy the first non-expatriate Indian author to take home the award, she also was the first Indian woman. On top of it all, this honor occurred in 1997, the 50th anniversary of India's independence from Britain.
Since her birth in 1961, Roy's life has taken as many twists as her labyrinthine prose. Raised by a Christian mother and abandoned by her Hindu father, Roy left home in Kerala at an early age to travel to Delhi, where she lived in a squatter's camp and sold empty beer bottles. After a jaunt to Goa and a flirtation with its hippie lifestyle, she settled upon the study of architecture. However, during a scholarship trip to Italy, Roy discovered her true passion: writing. She returned to Delhi and wrote two successful films before beginning her five-year dedication to her first novel, "The God of Small Things."
Set in 1969 in her childhood town of Kerala, "God" tells the story of Raher and her twin brother Estha, who discover in one day how ephemeral and fragile love can be. The novel unveils a post-colonial India struggling with its identity in the face of a multitude of disparate cultures and classes. With a language laden with metaphor, Roy expresses what she deems "an inextricable mix of experience and imagination."
In her latest book, "The Cost of Living," Roy delves into the political arena by tackling such issues as India's detonation of the bomb, the Narmada dam project, and the promotion of equal rights. Throughout all of her success, Roy has kept an uncommonly humble attitude. When asked about the acclaim she currently receives, she deflected praise, proclaiming that "language is a very reflexive thing. I don't know the rules, so I don't know if I've broken them."
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