Patna, Oct 03: Award-winning novelist Arundhati Roy, who has spent the past few years campaigning for the uplift of the oppressed and poor, has plans for another book but says writing does not come easily for her.
Roy is best known for her first book The God of Small Things, which won the Booker Prize and has been translated into over 40 languages.
She lives in New Delhi, and has written articles criticising India's nuclear weapons programme and the Narmada Dam project.
In an interview while visiting Raipur this week, she hinted that she planned to write another novel. "I hope to write, but right now I am not working on anything," she said.
Roy also admitted that writing did not come easily for her. It is not only tough to write a novel but to even write on current issues for newsmagazines because this needed a lot of research and travelling, she said.

Asked why she had shifted her energies from writing to supporting people's movements in India and abroad, Roy promptly said she was trying to understand the process of the people's struggle for survival.
She, however, made it clear that she was a writer first and her profession was to write but she is publicly supporting the cause of oppressed people to give them moral strength.

"After learning about the people's movements, I write to draw attention to their cause," said Roy, who was in Raipur to attend a rally organised by the Chhattisgarh Mukti Morcha to mark the death anniversary of its leader Shankar Guha Niyogi.
All political groups were playing the same game as far as the people were concerned and only people's movements could bring about social changes, she insisted.
While admitting that she did not feel comfortable with parliamentary politics, Roy said she was hopeful that the people would rise to teach a lesson to politicians.
"What interests me is the battle between the powerful and the powerless which is going on across India," she said.
"People have to become more powerful to enjoy their rights. Look at the government, it does not do anything unless the people force it."
Bureau Report