Arundhati Roy

2 months ago

“Each time I write something, it leads to something else. It’s not just jail sentences for me, but I’ve seen my friends jailed, dying, being killed. Sometimes I just feel that I’m not going to write again—but then it becomes harder to keep quiet than to write it. Every time I write something it’s because I can’t not write it.”

-Arundhati Roy, episode 429 of Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso

Few writers have bridged the personal and political as powerfully as Arundhati Roy. With her first memoir, fittingly titled Mother Mary Comes to Me, she turns to her turbulent relationship with her late mother, Mary Roy, a pioneering feminist who reshaped Indian law.

Act I: Let It Be

We begin with the imagery that animates the new book (4:10), her tumultuous household growing up (10:00), and how she sifted through those memories while writing The God of Small Things and The Ministry of Utmost Happiness (15:40).

Act II: She’s Leaving Home

Roy reflects on her mother’s impact as a teacher (22:00), navigating her severe asthma as a child (24:30), and the moment she ultimately left home (27:20) for architecture school where she worked on film sets (30:00) and discovered The Beatles.

Act III: Revolution

Then, finally, how her writing sprung from her past (32:00), the political attacks that followed the success of her debut novel (35:00), bearing witness in the age of authoritarianism (41:00), and the timeliness of her 1998 essay The End of Imagination (1:01:00).

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Arundhati Roy