New Delhi: Booker Prize winner Arundhati Roy has been selected by the US-based Lannan Foundation for its fourth annual $ 350,000 Prize for Cultural Freedom.

"As both an artist and global citizen, Arundhati Roy writes about civil societies that are adversely affected by the world's most powerful governments and corporations. We are honoured to celebrate her life and her ongoing work in the struggle for freedom, justice and cultural diversity," Foundation president J Patrick Lannan Jr said in a release from Santa Fe in the US.

Roy will receive $ 350,000 in prize money, and she has announced that the money will be shared by 50 people's movements, publications, educational institutions, theatre groups and individuals in India, the release said.

The Prize for Cultural Freedom was established to recognise people whose extraordinary and courageous work celebrates the human right to freedom of imagination, inquiry and expression.

Roy first gained international recognition in 1997 with her first and only work of fiction to date, 'The God of Small Things'. Later, in 'The Cost of Living', she condemned the Pokhran II nuke tests and displacement of the poor and tribals by the construction of massive hydroelectric dams.

Her recent book 'Power Politics' discusses privatisation of the country's power sector and the politics of writing. She was sentenced to one day in jail by the Supreme Court on contempt of court charges last year.

PTI