Man Booker Prize winning Indian author, best known for her debut novel The God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy celebrates her birthday on November 24. Born in Shillong Meghalaya, to a Malayali Syrian Christian mum and a Bengali Hindu father, she spent most of her life in Kerala along with her mum and dad, after her parent's divorced.
Roy who has worked for television and movies began writing her first novel, The God of Small Things, in 1992, completing it in 1996. She has also been a vocal critic of human rights issues and environmental causes.
On the author's birthday, here's looking at 5 books by her, one must read.
The God of Small Things
Roy's debut novel published in 1997, which earned her the Man Booker Prize for Fiction is about fraternal twins whose lives are destroyed by rules on who should be loved and to what degree. It traces themes of how small things affect people's lives.
Kashmir: The Case for Freedom
The book is a collection of essays by Tariq Ali, Hilal Bhat, Angana P. Chatterji, Habbah Khatun, Pankaj Mishra and Arundhati Roy. Roy's essay, 'Azadi: The only thing Kashmiris want' discusses Jawaharlal Nehru's stance on Kashmir, through his speeches, letters, and quotes. In the essay, Roy also criticises Indian journalists for not raising their voice against the human right abuses against the Kashmiri people.
Listening to Grasshoppers
A group of essays by the author that were written between 2002 and 2008, she takes a look at the underbelly of India's democracy and talks about how progress and genocide have gone hand in hand in the nation. The collection ends with an account of the August 2008 uprising in Kashmir. Furthermore, it also contains works on the November 2008 attacks on Mumbai.
The Shape of the Beast: Conversations with Arundhati Roy
The series of 14 interviews sees Roy speaking about people being displaced by dams and industries. It also talks about genocide in Gujarat, Maoist rebels, American imperialism and the Kashmir issue.
The Ministry of Utmost Happiness
Published 20 years after her debut novel, Roy's second work of fiction weaves together stories of different people who are navigating through some of the darkest episodes in modern Indian history.
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