Suzanna Arundhati Roy (; born 24 November 1961) is an Indian author best known for her novel The God of Small Things (1997), which won the Booker Prize for Fiction in 1997 and became the biggest-selling book by a non-expatriate Indian author. She is also a political activist involved in human rights and environmental causes. She was the winner of the 2024 PEN Pinter Prize, given by English PEN, and she named imprisoned British-Egyptian writer and activist Alaa Abd El-Fattah as the "Writer of Courage" with whom she chose to share the award.
Early life Roy was born in Shillong, in Undivided Assam (now in Meghalaya). Her mother, Mary Roy, was a Malayali Christian women's rights activist from Aymanam, Kerala, and belonged to the Jacobite Syrian denomination. Her father, Rajib Roy, was a Bengali Hindu who later embraced Christianity. He was a tea plantation manager from Kolkata, West Bengal.
Roy's father was an alcoholic. When she was two years old, her parents divorced, and she returned to Kerala with her mother and brother. For some time, the family lived with Roy's maternal grandfather in Ooty, Tamil Nadu. When she was five, the family moved back to Kerala, where her mother started a school. She attended school at Corpus Christi in Kottayam, Kerala, followed by the Lawrence School in Lovedale, Tamil Nadu.
Roy then studied architecture at the School of Planning and Architecture in New Delhi, where she met architect Gerard da Cunha. They moved in together in 1978 and lived in Delhi, pretending to be married, and then in Goa, before separating in 1982. Roy then returned to Delhi, where she obtained a position with the National Institute of Urban Affairs.
Career Early career: screenplays Early in her career, Roy worked in television and movies. She starred in Massey Sahib in 1985. She wrote the screenplays for In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones (1989), a movie based on her experiences as a student of architecture, in which she also appeared as a performer, and Electric Moon (1992)."Arundhati Roy, Author-Activist" , India Today. Retrieved 16 June 2013 Both were directed by her husband, Pradip Krishen, during their marriage. Roy won the National Film Award for Best Screenplay in 1988 for In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones. She attracted attention in 1994 when she criticised Shekhar Kapur's film Bandit Queen, which was based on the life of Phoolan Devi. In her film review titled "The Great Indian Rape Trick", Roy questioned the right to "restage the rape of a living woman without her permission", and charged Kapur with exploiting Devi and misrepresenting both her life and its meaning.The Great Indian Rape-Trick @ SAWNET -The South Asian Women's NETwork. Retrieved 25 November 2011.
The God of Small Things
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 Aymanam.
The publication of The God of Small Things catapulted Roy to international fame. It received the 1997 Booker Prize for Fiction and was listed as one of The New York Times Notable Books of the Year. It reached fourth position on The New York Times Bestsellers list for Independent Fiction. From the beginning, the book was also a commercial success: Roy received a publishing advance of half a million pounds. It was published in May, and the book had been sold in 18 countries by the end of June.
The God of Small Things received very favourable reviews in major American newspapers such as The New York Times (a "dazzling first novel", "extraordinary", "at once so morally strenuous and so imaginatively supple") and the Los Angeles Times ("a novel of poignancy and considerable sweep"), and in Canadian publications such as the Toronto Star ("a lush, magical novel"). It was one of the five best books of 1997 according to Time. Critical response in the United Kingdom was less favourable, and the awarding of the Booker Prize caused controversy; Carmen Callil, a 1996 Booker Prize judge, called the novel "execrable" and a Guardian journalist called the content "profoundly depressing". In India, E. K. Nayanar, then the chief minister of Roy's home state of Kerala, especially criticised the book's unrestrained description of sexuality, and she had to answer charges of obscenity.
Later career Since the success of her novel, Roy has written a television serial, The Banyan Tree,Sanghvi, Vir, "I think from a very early age, I was determined to negotiate with the world on my own", The Rediff Special. Retrieved 18 April 2012. . and the documentary DAM/AGE: A Film with Arundhati Roy (2002).
In 2006 Roy began working on a second novel, The Ministry of Utmost Happiness.
Roy contributed to We Are One: A Celebration of Tribal Peoples, a book released in 2009 that explores the culture of peoples around the world, portraying their diversity and the threats to their existence. The royalties from the sale of this book go to the indigenous rights organisation Survival International.
Roy has written numerous essays on contemporary politics and culture. In 2014, they were collected by Penguin India in a five-volume set. In 2019, her nonfiction was collected in a single volume, My Seditious Heart, published by Haymarket Books.Roy, Arundhati (2019), My Seditious Heart: Collected Nonfiction, Haymarket Books.
In October 2016, Penguin India and Hamish Hamilton UK announced that they would publish her second novel, The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, in June 2017."Arundhati Roy announces second book after 19 yrs; to release in June 2017", Hindustan Times. 3 October 2016. Retrieved 3 October 2016. . The novel was chosen for the Man Booker Prize 2017 longlist,Book Depository Retrieved 27 July 2017. and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction in January 2018.
Roy's book Mother Mary Comes to Me was published in September 2025. A memoir, it focuses on her early years living with her mother, whom Roy calls "my shelter and my storm". It was broadcast in five parts on BBC Radio 4 as Book of the Week.
In 2026, Roy's restored 1989 film In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones was scheduled to screen at the 76th Berlin International Film Festival, and Roy was due to appear, but she withdrew after jury president Wim Wenders, said in response to a journalist's question that the jury "has to stay out of politics".
Influences Roy cites William Shakespeare, Rudyard Kipling, James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, Maya Angelou, John Berger, James Joyce, Vladimir Nabokov, and Gabriel Garcia Marquez as influences and has said, "I’m grateful for the lessons one learns from great writers, but also from imperialists, sexists, friends, lovers, oppressors, revolutionaries—everybody. Everybody has something to teach a writer".
Advocacy Since publishing The God of Small Things in 1997, Roy has spent most of her time on political activism and non-fiction (such as collections of essays about social causes). She is a spokesperson of the anti-globalization/alter-globalization movement and a vehement critic of neo-imperialism and US foreign policy. She opposes India's policies toward nuclear weapons as well as industrialisation and economic growth (which she describes as "encrypted with genocidal potential" in Listening to Grasshoppers: Field Notes on Democracy). She has also questioned the conduct of the Indian police and administration in the case of the 2001 Indian Parliament attack and the Batla House encounter case, contending that the country has had a "shadowy history of suspicious terror attacks, murky investigations, and fake encounters".
At the Wayanad Literature Festival, in conversation with Parvathi Thiruvothu, Roy said her protests and writing are not shows of bravery, but of wanting space to breathe and create. She said that only if people have space can they create art and make mistakes. "Open the windows", she said.
Support for Kashmiri independence In an August 2008 interview with The Times of India, Roy expressed her support for the independence of Kashmir from India after the massive demonstrations in 2008 in favour of independence took place—some 500,000 people rallied in Srinagar in the Kashmir part of Jammu and Kashmir state of India for independence on 18 August 2008, following the Amarnath land transfer controversy. According to her, the rallies were a sign that Kashmiris desired secession from India, and not union with India. She was criticised by the Indian National Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party for her remarks.
All India Congress Committee member and senior Congress party leader Satya Prakash Malaviya asked Roy to withdraw her "irresponsible" statement, saying that it was "contrary to historical facts". She was charged with sedition along with separatist Hurriyat leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani and others by Delhi Police for their "anti-India" speech at a 2010 convention on Kashmir: "Azadi: The Only Way". In June 2024, the UAPA Act was invoked against them.
Roy has been criticized for saying that India has "perpetually waged war" on its citizens in Kashmir, Manipur, Goa, among other regions. Former Indian Foreign Secretary Kanwal Sibal accused her of endorsing terrorism against India and said she "blatantly distorts the truth to support her deeply communal and anarchist agenda", calling her portrayal of India "venomous" and "deeply anti-Hindu".
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. Roy donated her Booker prize money, as well as royalties from her books on the project, to the Narmada Bachao Andolan. Roy also appears in Franny Armstrong's Drowned Out, a 2002 documentary about the project. Roy's opposition to the Narmada Dam project was criticised as "maligning Gujarat" by Congress and BJP leaders in Gujarat. The Telegraph – Calcutta: Nation.
In 2002, Roy responded to a contempt notice issued against her by the Supreme Court of India with an affidavit saying that the court's decision to initiate 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" to silence criticism and dissent using the power of contempt. The court found Roy's statement, which she refused to disavow or apologise for, constituted criminal contempt, sentenced her to a "symbolic" one day's imprisonment, and fined her 2500. Roy served the jail sentence and paid the fine rather than serve an additional three months for default.
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,Guha, Ramachandra (26 November 2000), , The Hindu. and that "Ms. Roy's tendency to exaggerate and simplify, her Manichaean view of the world, and her shrill hectoring tone, have given a bad name to environmental analysis".Guha, Ramachandra (17 December 2000), "Perils of extremism", The Hindu. . He faulted 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".
Gail Omvedt and Roy have fiercely debated Roy's strategy for the Narmada Dam movement. They disagree on whether to demand stopping the dam building altogether (Roy) or search for intermediate alternatives (Omvedt).