Arundhati Roy wins PEN Pinter Prize 2024
Booker Prize-winning Indian author and activist Arundhati Roy has won the PEN Pinter Prize 2024.
The announcement was made on the website of English PEN on June 27.
According to the website, the award will be handed over to Arundhati Roy at a ceremony co-hosted by the British Library on October 10, where she will deliver an address.
The prize will be shared with a ‘Writer of Courage’ — a writer who is active in defence of freedom of expression, often at great risk to their own safety and liberty.
The co-winner, selected by Arundhati Roy from a shortlist of cases supported by English PEN, will be announced at the ceremony.
Arundhati Roy was chosen as the PEN Pinter Prize winner in April by the judges, comprising the English PEN chair Ruth Borthwick, actor and activist Khalid Abdalla and writer and musician Roger Robinson.
Ruth Borthwick congratulated Arundhati Roy on winning the PEN Pinter Prize.
He said, ‘Roy tells urgent stories of injustice with wit and beauty. While India remains an important focus, she is truly an internationalist thinker and her powerful voice is not to be silenced.’
Khalid Abdalla said, ‘Arundhati Roy is a luminous voice of freedom and justice whose words have come with fierce clarity and determination for almost thirty years now.’
‘In honouring Arundhati Roy this year, we are celebrating both the dignity of her body of work and the timeliness of her words, that arrive with the depth of her craft exactly when we need them most,’ commented Khalid Abdalla.
Roger Robinson said ‘Arundhati Roy was the unanimous choice for this prestigious award, a testament to her unparalleled contribution to literature.’
‘Her vast body of work, encompassing both fiction and non-fiction, has not only captivated readers worldwide but also consistently focused on themes of social justice.’ said Roger Robinson, adding, ‘Roy’s incisive commentary on issues ranging from environmental degradation to human rights abuses demonstrates her commitment to advocating for the marginalized and challenging the status quo.’
Arundhati Roy said that she was delighted to accept the PEN Pinter Prize.
She said, ‘I wish Harold Pinter were with us today to write about the almost incomprehensible turn the world is taking. Since he isn’t, some of us must do our utmost to try to fill his shoes.’
The PEN Pinter Prize was established in 2009 by the charity English PEN, which defends freedom of expression and celebrates literature, in memory of Nobel-Laureate Harold Pinter.
Tony Harrison received the PEN Pinter Prize in 2009 while Hanif Kureishi in 2010, Sir David Hare in 2011, Carol Ann Duffy in 2012, Tom Stoppard in 2013, Sir Salman Rushdie in 2014, James Fenton in 2015, Margaret Atwood in 2016, Michael Longley in 2017, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie in 2018, Lemn Sissay in 2019, Linton Kwesi Johnson in 2020, Tsitsi Dangarembga in 2021, Malorie Blackman in 2022, Michael Rosen in 2023 and Arundhati Roy in 2024.
Arundhati Roy was trained as an architect. She worked in cinema as an actress, screenplay writer and production designer.
In 1997, she won the Booker Prize for her first novel ‘The God of Small Things’. Her second novel ‘The Ministry of Utmost Happiness’ was published in 2017.
Her non-fiction books include ‘Capitalism: A Ghost Story’, ‘Broken Republic: Three Essays’, ‘Field Notes on Democracy: Listening to Grasshoppers’, ‘The Algebra of Infinite Justice’, ‘The Doctor and the Saint’, ‘My Seditious Heart’ and ‘Azadi: Freedom, Fiction, Fascism’.
She has been honoured with the Norman Mailer Prize for Distinguished Writing in 2011, the Sydney Peace Prize in 2004, the Mahmoud Darwaish Award in 2016 and the Lannan Foundation’s Cultural Freedom Award in 2002.