Arundhati Roy

Arundhati Roy was born in 1961 and grew up in Ayamanam, a village in India's southwestern state of Kerala. "It was the only place in the world where religions coincide, there's Christianity, Hinduism, Marxism and Islam and they all live together and rub each other down. When I grew up it was the Marxism that was very strong, it was like the revolution was coming next week."

Roy went to New Delhi and trained as an architect before working in film production and writing two screenplays. The God of Small Things, her first novel, brought international acclaim and the Booker Prize in 1997.

Her collected essays The Algebra of Infinite Justice, published last year, offer a brilliant commentary on the politics of betrayal in an age where stupidity has replaced ignorance.

"The only thing worth globalizing is dissent."

Arundhati Roy lives in New Delhi.