Transcript
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Lulu Garcia Navarro (0:34)
From the New York Times this is the Interview. I'm Lulu Garcia Navarro. As we get older, we often struggle to untangle the impact our parents have on our lives. For acclaimed author Arundhati Roy, that process of excavation happened after her mother's death in 2022 through writing. Her new memoir, Mother Mary Comes to Me is more than just a chronicle of her complex relationship with her mother, whose bouts of clawing, lashing, fury, as Roy describes it, scarred both her and her brother. It's also about Roy herself and why she's become a writer. Transfixed by the pain and suffering of those around her, Roy has spent her career writing about the rich lives and deep struggles of marginalized and oppressed people in India. Her Booker Prize winning first novel, the God of Small Things has sold over 6 million copies and made her an international literary star when it came out in 1997. What followed over the next several decades were dozens of articles pointing her pen at a range of injustices from India's caste system to the treatment of Muslims, especially in Indian controlled Kashmir. Both her work and her person have been repeatedly targeted by India's government under populist leader Narendra Modi and she's currently facing possible prosecution under anti terrorism laws for comments she made years ago about the territorial conflict in Kashmir. When we spoke, we started with her mother's story, but in our second conversation she talked about the cost of speaking out and her fears for America under President Trump. Here's my conversation with author Arundhati Roy. Hi.
Arundhati Roy (2:27)
Hi Lulu. How are you?
Lulu Garcia Navarro (2:28)
I'm very well. Thank you so much for coming onto the interview. I'm very pleased to have you.
Arundhati Roy (2:35)
Thank you.
Lulu Garcia Navarro (2:37)
This book really resonated with me. It's a memoir of you, but also a biography of your mother who died in 2022 at the age of 80. And she was a very complicated and difficult person as you describe her while I was reading. Reminded me of this quote by the writer Czeslav Milosz who wrote, when a writer is born into the family, the family is finished. Did you struggle with how much to reveal about your mother and your family, just in the personal context of how difficult your upbringing actually was.
