| (The Booker Prize award in 1998 for Arundhati Roy's 'The God of Small Things' opened up a new opportunity for the novelist to turn her attentions to India's nuclear policy and the campaign against the Narmada dam projects, for which she earned the label "write activist". What does this signify? Is Roy a new-style global international intellectual/activist? This article first places the writer within the context of "development journalism" in India, then assesses Roy's publication outlets, and the nature of activism as expressed in her writing in the light of the concept of the new international public sphere Roy's aim is to influence internationally, and her writing has provoked considerable response on the Internet. To this extent, Roy is contributing internationally to what promoters of the significance of the medium have described as a "multi-discursive public sphere" but this article questions whether we should accept the term "new international public sphere".) |