Arundhati Roy Won 45th European Essay Prize Awards For 'Azadi' (Image:www.facebook.com/ArundhatiRoyAuthor)
Ms Roy secured the award for the French translation of her essay compilation titled “Azadi”.
The God of Small Things author Arundhati Roy received the prestigious 45th European Essay Prize for Lifetime Achievement, given by Charles Veillon Foundation. She received the award at a ceremony on September 12, 2023 at the Lausanne Palace.
Ms Roy was honoured for the French translation of her compilation of essays titled “Azadi” – Liberté, fascisme, fiction (Paris: Gallimard, 2021). The book is a reflection on the meaning of freedom in a world of “growing authoritarianism”. It includes meditations on language, public and private life, role of fiction and alternative imaginations in the present times.
“The jury of the Prix Europeen de l”Essai wishes to highlight an enriching work in terms of reflection on the construction of the world and the relationship with language”, said the Charles Veillon Foundation in an official statement.
“Arundhati Roy uses the essay as a form of combat, analysing fascism and the way it is being structured. This is an issue that is increasingly occupying our lives. Her essays offer shelter to a multitude of people”, the statement added.
By giving the award, the jury also acknowledges the author’s commitment to political action. Ms Roy is a political activist involved in human rights and environmental causes.
The jury also quoted an excerpt from Ms Roy”s award winning book Azadi. It reads; “When the country burns, the far right will once again present themselves to us as the only ones capable of running a “hard state” and handling the problem. Will a polity that has been deeply polarized be able to see though these games? It’s hard to say”.
Ms Roy won the Booker Prize for Fiction in 1997 for her novel The God of Small Things, which became the best-selling book by a non-expatriate Indian author.
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She was born in Shillong in India, to Mary Roy, a Malayali Jacobite Syrian Christian women”s rights activist from Kerala and Rajib Roy, a Bengali Hindu tea plantation manager from Calcutta. She later moved to Kerala with her mother, after her parents divorced. She studied Architecture in Delhi, where she met architect Gerard da Cunha. They married in 1978 and lived together in Delhi, and then Goa, before they separated and divorced in 1982.
The God of Small Things, The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, and My Seditious Heart are the major works garnered her national and international acclaim.
The Charles Veillon Foundation established the European Essay Prize in 1975 in order to support authors. The prize is “to help them, through their writings, to create links, an essential condition for tolerance in the relative freedom of our time”.
It also attempts to “create spaces for fruitful dialogue by promoting interdisciplinarity and placing the person at the centre of cultural and societal orientations”.
Earlier, authors including Alexandre Zinoviev, Edgar Morin, Tzvetan Todorov, Amin Maalouf, Siri Hustvedt, Alessandro Baricco, Jean Starobinski, Iso Camartin, and Peter von Matt have been awarded the European Essay Prize.
