The Wire

Author Arundhati Roy was awarded the 2004 Sydney Peace Prize last week. The Sydney Peace Foundation recognized her courage in campaigns for human rights, her advocacy of non violence, her demands for justice for the poor, for the victims of communal violence, for the millions displaced by the Narmada dam projects and by her opposition to nuclear weapons. Arundhati Roy is perhaps best known as the author of the Booker Prize winning novel The God of Small Things. She follows other distinguished recipients of the Sydney Peace Prize: Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu; Xanana Gusmao; and last year’s winner Palestinian academic and human rights campaigner Dr. Hanan Ashrawi.