Arunadhati Roy was born in 1961 in Shillong, Meghalaya, India. She is an Indian writer and activist best known for her novel The God of Small Things, for which she won the Man Booker Prize in 1997. Roy uses her writing and activism to bring attention to social and political issues in India such as environmentalism, globalization, nuclear weapons, and human rights. She has received numerous awards for her writing and advocacy work, including the Sydney Peace Prize in 2004.