Arundhati Roy

Novels

In 1997 Roy published her debut novel, The God of Small Things, to wide acclaim. The semi-autobiographical work, chronicling the history of the Ipe family, departed from the conventional plots and light prose typical of bestsellers at the time. Composed in lyrical language and centered on Indian themes and characters in a narrative that wanders through time, Roy’s novel became the biggest-selling book by a nonexpatriate Indian author and won the 1997 Booker Prize for fiction. During the award ceremony, one of the judges, Gillian Beer, remarked on Roy’s genius, stating:

Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things funnels the history of South India through the eyes of seven-year-old twins. With extraordinary linguistic inventiveness, she splices their perception as children and as devastated adults. The story she tells is fundamental as well as local. It’s about love and death—about lies and laws.

Roy was summoned to court in Kerala on August 19, 1997, after her book was charged with obscenity for depicting an intimate scene between a Christian woman and a marginalized Hindu man.

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In 2017 Roy published The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, her first novel in 20 years. The anachronistic narrative weaves together the personal stories of a motley crew of characters led by Anjum, a transgender woman, and S. Tilottama, an insurgent in Kashmir, where the conflict is seen by some as a legitimate struggle. In the violent world of the novel, trauma shapes the continuity of the characters’ lives, as stressed by Roy’s observation of their resilience:

Normality in our part of the world is a bit like a boiled egg: its humdrum surface conceals at its heart a yolk of egregious violence. It is our constant anxiety about that violence, our memory of its past labors and our dread of its future manifestations, that lays down the rules for how a people as complex and as diverse as we are continue to coexist—continue to live together, tolerate each other and, from time to time, murder one another. As long as the center holds, as long as the yolk doesn’t run, we’ll be fine.

Nonfiction works

Roy’s subsequent literary output largely consists of politically oriented nonfiction, much of it aimed at addressing the problems faced by her homeland in the age of global capitalism. Among her publications are Power Politics (2001), The Algebra of Infinite Justice (2002), War Talk (2003), Public Power in the Age of Empire (2004), Field Notes on Democracy: Listening to Grasshoppers (2009), Broken Republic: Three Essays (2011), and Capitalism: A Ghost Story (2014). My Seditious Heart (2019) is a collection of her nonfiction spanning 20 years.

In 2024 Roy released The Architecture of Modern Empire, a collection of two decades of interviews with journalist and radio broadcaster David Barsamian that explores the structures of empire.

Sedition charge

Roy’s legal problems continued, however, and in 2010 she narrowly avoided prosecution under a sedition charge after making remarks in favor of Kashmir’s secession from India.

In June 2024 Indian authorities granted permission for Roy to be prosecuted for her comments in 2010 about Kashmiri independence. After India’s sedition law was put on hold by the Supreme Court, Delhi’s senior official invoked Section 13 of India’s anti-terrorism law, the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA). Section 13 punishes individuals who advocate, abet, or incite any unlawful activity with imprisonment for up to seven years and a fine. By invoking UAPA, which has no statute of limitations, such limitations of other laws that might have applied to her case can be bypassed. The decision was condemned by numerous civil rights groups, and more than 200 Indian activists, journalists, and academics signed an open letter urging the Indian government to withdraw the sanction.

Activism in Chhattisgarh

Roy has drawn criticism for her vocal support of the Maoist-backed Naxalite insurgency group’s efforts to resist mining on tribal lands in Chhattisgarh state. Having lived with the guerrilla fighters in the forest for three weeks, she summarized her experience in the essay Walking with the Comrades (2011) in these words:

We’re moving in single file now. Myself and one hundred ‘senselessly violent’, bloodthirsty insurgents. I looked around at the camp before we left. There are no signs that almost a hundred people had camped here, except for some ash where the fires had been. I cannot believe this army. As far as consumption goes, it’s more Gandhian than any Gandhian, and has a lighter carbon footprint than any climate change evangelist.

Developments after 2014

After Narendra Modi was elected prime minister of India in 2014, Roy became a trenchant critic of his government. In December 2015 she was issued a contempt of court notice for an article in which she defended a professor who had been arrested for alleged Maoist links. Two years later the Supreme Court issued a stay, which temporarily stopped the proceedings. During this time Roy continued to be involved in various causes. In 2019 she was among a number of people who cosigned an open letter that called for Afghan women to be involved in peace talks between the United States and the Taliban.

In December 2019 Roy joined more than a thousand students, artists, and writers across New Delhi and Assam in protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act. She was later outspoken in her criticism of the Indian government’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2020 she wrote an influential essay, “The Pandemic Is a Portal,” in which she discussed how the pandemic was an opportunity to rethink the future. Later that year it was included in her essay collection Azadi: Freedom. Fascism. Fiction.

In February 2026 Roy withdrew from the Berlin International Film Festival, during which a restored version of In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones (1989) was scheduled to be screened. Her decision followed remarks by German filmmaker and jury president Wim Wenders, who, when questioned about Germany’s support for Israel amid the Gaza conflict (see Israel-Hamas War), stated that filmmakers should avoid political engagement. Roy rejected this position, arguing that artists cannot remain neutral in the face of ongoing humanitarian crises. She characterized Israel’s actions in Gaza as crimes against humanity enabled by U.S. and German support and criticized the festival jury for attempting to silence such discourse. Days later more than 80 artists, including actor Tilda Swinton and filmmaker Adam McKay, signed an open letter condemning what they termed the festival’s “institutional silence” on the Gaza crisis and its censorship of artists who expressed solidarity with Palestinians.

Roy wrote extensively about the production of In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones in her memoir Mother Mary Comes to Me (2025), which was long-listed for the Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction.