Arundhati Roy in Conversation with Naomi Klein

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Arundhati Roy’s first novel, The God of Small Things, won the Booker Prize and made her an international household name. She has gone on to publish multiple acclaimed books—including The Ministry of Utmost Happiness—and to challenge injustices around the world as a prominent political and environmental activist. Her impact has been recognized with the PEN Pinter Prize and Time’s 100 most influential people distinction—as well as sedition charges and prosecution by the Indian government. Get up close and personal with the author’s fascinating debut memoir.

Mother Mary Comes to Me is a soaring account of how Roy became the person and the writer she is, shaped by circumstance, but above all by her complex relationship to the extraordinary, singular mother she describes as “my shelter and my storm.” Mary’s death in September 2022 prompted Roy to trace her complex relationship with the mother she ran away from at age eighteen. The author takes us on an intimate journey from her childhood in Kerala, India, where her single mother founded a school, to the writing of her prizewinning novels and essays, through today.

Roy speaks with award-winning journalist, author and activist—as well as her longtime friend—Naomi Klein, about her latest book and her work to date, the intricacies of thorny love, and living on the frontlines of humanism.

Presented in partnership with Simon & Schuster Canada, UBC Centre for Climate Justice and Indian Summer Festival.

Event Participants:

Naomi Klein

NAOMI KLEIN is the award-winning author of international bestsellers including This Changes Everything, The Shock Doctrine, No Logo, No Is Not Enough, On Fire, and Doppelganger, which have been published in more than thirty-five languages. She is an associate professor in the department of geography at the University of British Columbia, the founding codirector of UBC’s Centre for Climate Justice, and an honorary professor of Media and Climate at Rutgers University. Her writing has appeared in leading publications around the world, and she is a columnist for The Guardian.

Arundhati Roy

ARUNDHATI ROY is the author of The God of Small Things, which won the Booker Prize in 1997, and The Ministry of Utmost Happiness. Roy has also published several works of nonfiction including The End of Imagination, The Doctor and the Saint, and My Seditious Heart. She lives in Delhi.