LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Ever since Arundhati Roy's writing made her famous after her first novel won her the Booker Prize nearly 30 years ago, she's used her words and her celebrity to write on injustice, minority rights and the human condition. And that's been met with wrath and attempted censorship from the Hindu nationalist government in her native India. She's been found guilty of contempt by the country's Supreme Court and is currently facing prosecution for something she said over a decade ago under the country's anti-terrorism law.
Her latest writing, though, is her most personal. It's about her mother, Mary Roy. She died three years ago, and Arundhati Roy had to grapple with why the loss of a parent she once ran away from hit her so hard. Her new memoir is "Mother Mary Comes To Me." And when I spoke to her, I started by asking her to describe her mom, a woman she calls her gangster.
ARUNDHATI ROY: Well, it took me a whole book.
FADEL: Yeah.
(LAUGHTER)
ROY: What it was, was a challenge to me as a writer.
FADEL: Yeah.
ROY: Can you write this woman? Can you write a person who you really can't make up your mind about 'cause she has such a spectrum of facets to her, you know?
FADEL: Yeah.
ROY: And if I had to describe her, I'd say she was like a airport with no runways. You could never land.
FADEL: I don't know that as anybody's child we see our parent as a whole person, but you wrote about a whole person with her own traumas. She was this defender of women's rights. She built a school with a cult following after leaving her husband and being shunned by her family and community. She creates a path for you to also speak up and defend against injustice. But she was awful to you. How did you write about her in this holistic way with her own traumas and demons?
ROY: I mean, now when I think of it, I think I was her mother, you know? Like, I was the one who continuously needed to try and understand her and why is she doing this, or why is she saying that? Sometimes it was so tiring. As a child, I could see her fighting for the space for women. I admired that even then. Even when I was the victim of her wrath and her anger and her resentment, I could somewhere see that it was because of what she was doing and what she was doing was partly for me, too, not because I was her daughter, but because I was a woman.
FADEL: When your mother in the book passes away, you talk about being unanchored in the world. Does it still feel like this?
ROY: You know, I had to spend so much of my life trying to manage this relationship, and in order to manage it, I had to become a very strange shape. And when the reason for being that shape isn't there, why am I like this, you know?
FADEL: Why am I shaped like this?
ROY: Yeah. Because the reason for being shaped like this in this odd way has gone, but you're now shaped like this.
FADEL: Yeah.
ROY: However harsh and cruel she was, I knew that it was worth that thing that I held on to, you know, that I do not want to ever defeat her, and I want to - her to go out like a queen. And so I thank the god of striped and spotted things that I did not defeat her.
FADEL: Why didn't you? I mean, just in the sense that there were moments where she was so cruel to you and the insults. And the moment that you ran away, it was to escape an abuse.
ROY: Yeah. But there was always that admiration, too, in me, you know?
FADEL: Yeah.
ROY: There was always that part of you which said, wow, look what she's done.
FADEL: And that's what's so incredible about your book, is that despite the cruelty that's described, you don't hate your mother. The reader doesn't hate your mother. They also...
ROY: Yeah.
FADEL: ...Are in awe of her and...
ROY: Yeah.
FADEL: ...Confused by - or at least I was.
ROY: Yes, yes. I think I just wanted you to feel like me.
FADEL: The political situation in India is the background of your life story. And your book spans your whole life, but really politically were from the '90s to almost present day. Is there a larger message here to other nations, including the U.S., that are watching the rise of populist, fervent ideologies like Christian nationalism here?
ROY: Well, you know, honestly, I spent so much time thinking about the parallels, and India was politically in the place where the U.S. is now in 2014. We saw the attack on history books. The only big difference is that in India, the mainstream media has been entirely complicit with this.
FADEL: You are such a known figure now, and your writing has gotten such acclaim. And that means a lot of public adoration, but also a lot of public abuse when you stand up for something that's not popular. But you write in your book that celebration of something you've done or that you're doing triggers a childhood fear, a moment where your brother was beaten over his grades in another room, and the next morning, you were praised for good grades. And at the time, you wrote, (reading) on occasions where I'm toasted or applauded, I always feel that someone else, someone quiet, is being beaten in another room. Is that something you still feel?
ROY: But it's true, isn't it?
FADEL: Yeah.
ROY: I mean, as we speak, it's true. People in Gaza are being beaten and starved. Wherever you look, things are happening, and you can't just think of your own story.
FADEL: Yeah.
ROY: You know? It's - my story is the story of so many people and so many things and so many circles of solidarity and suffering and so on. So it's not that I'm triggered or guilty or anything like that. It's just that I'm aware. I'm a person who's aware. It's awareness. It's not guilt, you know? It's just...
FADEL: It's reality.
ROY: Yes, yes. You know, and that doesn't mean that we are sort of incapable of happiness or incapable of being glad that our work is appreciated. But how can you not be aware of what's going on?
FADEL: Arundhati Roy's new book is "Mother Mary Comes To Me." Thank you so much for your time.
ROY: Thank you. Bye-bye.
(SOUNDBITE OF MARC ATO'S "LET IT BE (INSTRUMENTAL PIANO") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
