Arundhati Roy | 5 Literary works worth reading!

 

Arundhati Roy is not only an author. She is also recognized for her efforts to encourage the global environmental movement and stand tall for humanitarian issues. Her books are known for their perfect fluidity and creating emotions that move the reader. She writes them in an attempt to provoke thoughts that can turn tides in the traditional belief systems.

Her part-journalistic and part-polemic sense, backed by factual data and critical thinking, have the power to move her audience. Her well-known career also involves story writing and scriptwriting for films in the early 90s decade. She is also a renowned columnist with a couple of television drama credits under her belt.

Arundhati Roy is an obvious choice for many literature nerds who love to read a piece of literature that adds a certain value to their time. So let’s dive into some of her most thought-provoking literary works that are capable of turning tides (and your head)!

1. The God of Small Things

The critically acclaimed Man-Booker Prize winner – The God of Small Things obviously comes at the top of this list. This debut novel deals with trauma, grief, and abuse towards more than one section of society and also how it affects other people around. 

The book draws its internal theme from Indian history, politics, and how religion at large is treated. Besides her analysis of Indian history and politics, Roy examines the post-colonial complex and the cultural views of many Indians towards their former British overlords. 

The protagonists of the novel also come from an emigrant household, which Chacko explains to the twins when Ammu slams her father for his “shit-wiping” dedication to British culture. The characters in the novel are “stuck outside their own history and incapable of tracing their steps.” One of the main characters in the book associates their trauma with self-loathing.

The God of Small Things has well captivated the theme of generational trauma against the backdrop of a casteist society. 

2. The Cost of Living

In this book, Roy takes a daring leap towards two of the biggest conceits of Indian progress. The gigantic dam projects that were supposed to propel this sprawling subcontinent into the modern era, but instead have displaced innumerable millions. And the detonation of India’s First Nuclear Bomb at Pokhran. These two projects, which were the leverage of India’s development, are the heart of the book. 

Roy combines her voice not only with moral fury but also with the imaginative breadth to expose the hidden price of democracy and prosperity. A society that is sensitive to any singular event can cause an uproar among people. She shows this with clarity an image of India, where many end up sacrificing their lives for the luxury of a few. 

She also captures all this and more in a fire-traced sketch of the Indian socio-economic backdrop. The central theme of this piece of work offers a lot of well-researched information that comes to light in her writing.

3. War Talk

War Talk is a collection of in-depth essays about clarity, fervor, and political knowledge. Moreover, her study focuses on the upsurge in racial or religious violence around the world. Roy faces the call to militarism, from the horrendous massacres of Muslims in Gujarat, India, to the U.S. clamor for a war on Iraq.

In the midst of the escalating nuclear tensions between her homeland and Pakistan, she challenges the nation-ethnicity equation. Moreover, Roy examines her own roles as a “writer” and “activist” in her writings. 

4. The Algebra Of Infinite Justice

The Algebra of Infinite Justice (2001) discusses the impact of-

• Public work projects on the environment.
• Multinational corporations on policy in weakened countries.
• India’s political elation above its successful nuclear bomb testing. 

Arundhati wrote these essays to read, debate, challenge, and also uplift the audience. These pieces meticulously reveal and carefully argue the tolls of war on a country. She also writes with rage, grief and mourns the loss of her once peace-loving nation. We may have only seen one side of the thermonuclear advancement India made, but Arundhati speaks of the hidden side of this project – the lives it affected and the mess it made. 

5. Capitalism- A Ghost Story

The Great Capitalist Nation: India reveals where capitalism plays its dirtiest tricks. In it, Roy writes about the poisoned rivers, barren wells, and the increasing number of farmers’ suicide under the increasing debts. 

She talks about the millions of people who fall ‘below the poverty line,’ and live their day-to-day life under the budget of a meager 20 INR. Arundhati writes about the nation of 1.2 Billion people who are led by the 100 richest people of India. She brings up that their assets are equivalent to one-fourth of India’s GDP. 

‘Capitalism: A Ghost Story’ explores the dark underbelly of democracy in modern India and demonstrates how the constraints of globalized capitalism have subjected billions of people to the most extreme kinds of bigotry and exploitation.

Key takeaways 

Backed by generous data and information, Suzanna Arundhati Roy continues to write brilliantly about humanitarian causes. Her logical reasoning and critical thinking will always give us much-needed intel into what’s going on in the background.

She writes about the Indian Society that governs largely on aristocracy discriminating against a large section of the population. Additionally, Arundhati writes at large about the religion, the poor, and the casteism that goes unnoticed by the population untouched by these issues. 

Reading Arundhati Roy will move you in ways a reader longs for. She not only inspires you but also challenges your belief systems, and makes you question the most basic things in life.

We hope you enjoyed reading this blog. And if you have any questions, drop them in the comments below. You can also get in touch with us now!

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FAQ

Q1. Is Arundhati Roy a post-colonial writer? 

Answer – Arundhati Roy’s writing is known for its realist impulse in the post-colonial backdrop of Indian history. 

Q2. What is the structure of The God of Small Things? 

Answer – The God of Small Things novel is in a quilted format of flashbacks with extended digressions that weave together to depict the story of the Ipe family. 

Q3. Who is Arundhati Roy? 

Answer – Arundhati Roy is an Indian author best known for her 1997 novel The God of Small Things. She won the Man Booker Prize for Fiction and also became the greatest-selling book by a non-expat Indian author.