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In her latest work, Power Politics, Arundhati Roy, the internationally acclaimed author of The God of Small Things, explores the politics of writing and the human and environmental costs of development.
In Power Politics, Roy challenges the idea that only experts can speak out on such urgent matters as nuclear war, the privatization of India’s power supply by Enron—now the center of a major national controversy over its corrupt business practices— and the construction of monumental dams in India, which will dislocate millions of people. “If [Roy] continues to upset the globalization applecart like a Tom Paine pamphleteer, she will either be greatly honored or thrown in jail,” wrote Pawl Hawken in Wired Magazine.
Roy also describes the legal challenges she has faced after the tremendous international success of her novel, winner of the prestigious Booker Prize. Because of her vocal activism and criticism of the government, Roy faces a new contempt of court case in India, and could be sentenced to six months in jail in March 2002.
When the US responded to the unconscionable attacks of September 11 by preparing to wage a war on Afghanistan, Roy wrote an internationally acclaimed essay, “The Algebra of Infinite Justice,” calling on the world not to use violence against innocent people in Afghanistan. After the war began, she wrote another powerful challenge to the war, “War is Peace.” The essays were printed around the world and were discussed on ABC's Nightline, in Newsweek, and in the New York Times. The expanded edition of Power Politics includes the fully annotated versions of “The Algebra of Infinite Justice” and “War is Peace.”
Power Politics was a Book Sense 76 featured choice for November and December 2001 and was a Los Angeles Times “Discoveries” selection in October 2001.
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