Suzanna Arundhati Roy was born in Shillong, Meghalaya on November 24, 1961. Her mother, Mary Roy was a Keralite Syrian Christian activist for women’s rights. Her Bengali father was a planter of tea. Her childhood was spent in Aymanam or Ayemenem of Kerala. She attended school at Corpus Christi, Kottayam and later at the Lawrence School, Lovedale of Nilgiris, Tamil Nadu. Afterward she studied architecture in New Delhi at the School of Planning and Architecture. This is where she met her first husband, an architect by the name of Gerard DeCunha.

Arundhati Roy first drew attention to herself for criticizing the film Bandit Queen by Shekhar Kapur, which is based on Phoolan Devi’s life. She claimed that Devi was exploited and her life was misrepresented.

Arundhati Roy completed her first novel, The God of Small Things in 1996. The book is sort of an autobiography that tells of her experiences during her childhood. The book not only won the Booker Prize for Fiction in 1997, but was also listed as a Notable Book of the Year by the New York Times that same year. The book landed the number four spot on the list of best sellers of independent fiction.

Arundhati Roy announced that a second novel was in the works in 2007.