As usual when we start a new book, I like to look up biographical information on the author. So I did just that for Arundhati Roy. Here are some of my findings:
Arundhati Roy was born in Bengal, India, on November 24, 1961, and grew up in Kerala. Her parents had interesting lives: "Her father was a tea planter, and her mother would later help alter India's inheritance laws by successfully suing for Christian women to receive an equal share of their fathers' estates." (Her mother's act already seems to connect with a theme in the book.)
After working several odd jobs, A. Roy did some work in the film industry, starring in a movie, and writing scripts for movies and television dramas. In 1997, God of Small Things was published. It soon thereafter became a best-seller, and won the Booker Prize, but some critics complained about the obscenity of sexual scenes in the book.
The article describes God of Small Things as a "semiautobiographical work departed from the conventional plots and light prose that were typical among best-sellers" and that it's written in "lyrical language"--the part about "lyrical language" only seems typical of books written by those under the influence of India, and I can certainly see it in the book.
What's even more interesting about A. Roy is something I read in the chapter 1 notes in our special God of Small Things packet. Paul Brians, the person who compiled the notes, says, "Roy often denies in interviews that she has been influenced by Salman Rushdie, but it is difficult to see how she could have avoided his influence, pervasive among younger South Asian writers."
So I decided to look up information on Salman Rushdie, too.
Salman Rushdie was born on June 19, 1947, in Bombay (now Mumbai), India. He studied at schools in India and England. Many of his books are considered to be allegories of situations in India. Although his books have won prestigious awards, criticism for them has also been fierce. Iranian Muslim clerics issued a virtual death sentence on S. Rushdie after considering his book Satanic Verses (published in 1988) to be blaspheming Islam.
From what I've researched, it appears that the people who lived in this area were very much influenced by their surroundings, and passionately wrote to bring light to the circumstances, often in the face of intense opposition.
(Sources: Article on Arundhati Roy is from http://school.eb.com/eb/article-9123760?query=Arundhati%20Roy&ct= Note: In order to access this site, you may have to login through using a username and password provided by OPRFHS Library Services.
Articles on Salman Rushdie from http://www.contemporarywriters.com/authors/?p=auth87 and http://school.eb.com/eb/article-9064456?query=Salman%20Rushdie&t= which again may have to be accessed from the same username and password as the A. Roy article.)
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