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January 17, 2006
Award-Winning Novelist Rejects a Prize
From the NY Times:
The Booker Prize-winning novelist Arundhati Roy, below, has rejected an award from India's academy of letters because she opposes the government's policies, Agence France-Presse reported yesterday. Her one-page fax to the Sahitya Akademi said she did not want to accept a prize from a body linked to the government, said K. Sachidanandan, an academy official, according to the Press Trust of India. The official added: "We are trying to persuade her to reconsider her decision. We are telling her that the Akademi is intellectually and culturally purely autonomous although it is funded by the government. There have been many occasions when we opposed government policies ourselves." Ms. Roy, who won the 1997 Booker Prize for her first novel, "The God of Small Things," is known as a strong critic of the government; she opposed nuclear tests in 1998 and has opposed major dam projects. The academy, which awards annual prizes to works in 22 languages spoken in India, chose Ms. Roy's collection of political essays, "The Algebra of Infinite Justice," in the English category. The accolade carries a prize of $1,000 and a plaque.
Posted by Mary Anne Mohanraj at January 17, 2006 11:14 AM
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Posted by: Anonymous at January 17, 2006 11:14 AM
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