Language is my friend, fiction my first love: Arundhati Royal cues
She writes poetic prose, employs redolent metaphors and evokes utmost admiration for her novelistic virtues. Arundhati Roy is anything but a boring author.The 1997 Booker Prize-winner, who is equally at ease writing scathing essays, says she is a “disciplined writer” whose heart lies in fiction as it is a “connective tissue” between many things which are sometimes looked at or studied in isolation.”Much of my non-fiction writing is an argument, but fiction is where you create a universe through which you invite a reader to walk. It is much more complex. For me, it is the most satisfying thing. When I write fiction, I feel like I am using all my skills, it delights me the most,” Roy told DIN in an interview.”It is only fiction that transcends what is increasingly being divided into subjects. Fiction is the connective tissue between so many things which are sometimes looked at or studied in isolation. It allows you not to isolate things,” she said.Best known for her debut novel ‘The God of Small Things’ which won the 1997 Man Booker Prize and catapulted her into fame, Roy came out with her second work of fiction ‘The Ministry of Utmost Happiness’ in 2017 after a hiatus of twenty years.
The second novel which was longlisted for the 2017 Man Booker Prize has been received well and is already translated into nearly 50 languages, including Hindi and Urdu.The Hindi and Urdu translations of Roy’s second novel have been done by Rajkamal Prakashan Samuh. They will be launched on February 2. Manglesh Dabral has done the Hindi translation “Aapar Khusi ka Gharana” and Arjumand Ara’s Urdu translation is titled “Bepanah Shadmani Ki Mumlikat”.
