Interesting Indian writer, born Suzanna Arundhati Roy in Ayamanam, a village in central Kerala in the east of India. She originally trained as an architect in Delhi, and then moved into TV scripts and critical writing, notably her diss of the film The Bandit Queen, the life story of Phoolan Devi, which resulted in litigation, and the end of Roy's TV career. She retired to write and published The God of Small Things in 1997, which won the Booker Prize. It's a stunningly beautiful book, basically a love story, also a description of growing up in India amidst injustice and violence. The book also created much controversy: it was slammed by Indian critics for having 'obscene' sexual content, which Roy attributes to the sympathetic treatment of the 'untouchable' caste in the book. She's now working mostly as a political journalist, campaigning against nuclear weapons and for equal rights for women in India, and was arrested in January protesting against the building of the Narmada dam.