The Booker Prize-Winning Writer Arundhati Roy’s Debut Memoir to be Published in September Next Year

Publisher Penguin Random House announced on Friday that famous writer Arundhati Roy’s upcoming memoir will be published in September of next year.

The much awaited memoir will give a detailed and inspiring account of the circumstances of how Arundhati Roy became the person she is today.

Most of all, the book titled ‘Mother Mary Comes To Me’, gives a detailed account of her complex relationship with her mother whom she describes as “my shelter and my storm”.

Deeply affected by her mother’s death and “more than a little ashamed” by the intensity of her response, Roy began writing the memoir, said Penguin publishing imprint Hamish Hamilton.

Writing the memoir was a way to understand and process the feelings she had towards her mother, whom she ran away from, at the age of eighteen. Her mother Mary Roy who was a women’s rights activist passed away in September 2022.

“I have been writing this book all my life. Perhaps a mother like mine deserved a writer like me as a daughter. Equally, perhaps a writer like me deserved a mother like her. Even more than a daughter mourning the passing of her mother, I mourn her as a writer who has lost her most enthralling subject.

“It’s not easy for me to think of this story being out in this world, at this time, but I am reassured by the fact that it will be published by some of the most thoughtful, legendary publishers in the world,” Roy said in a statement.

“That Arundhati Roy has chosen this generous, courageous memoir as her means to unravel her relationship with her formidable mother is our privilege entirely—for, in doing so, she allows her reader to bear witness to a remarkable journey. Filled with heart and nerve, humour and pathos, and the very raw edges of love, ‘Mother Mary Comes to Me’ is a visceral and unflinching account of personal and political awakening. We are delighted to share it with the world,” Manasi Subramaniam, editor-in-chief of Penguin Press, Penguin Random House India said.

The book will be simultaneously published in the UK (Hamish Hamilton), the US & Canada (Scribner), Germany (Fischer), France (Gallimard), Italy (Guanda), Spain (Alfaguara/PRH), the Netherlands (Park Uitgevers), Sweden (Bromberg), Finland (Otava) and Norway (Pax).

In June, the Booker Prize winning author won the PEN Pinter Prize award. This annual award is bestowed on writers for their “outstanding literary merit” and their “unflinching” look at the world.

The bold and profound writer is known for her numerous literary works such as 'The God of Small Things' ,'The Ministry of Utmost Happiness' and her insightful essays in works such as 'The End of Imagination', 'The Doctor and The Saint' and ‘The Algebra of Infinite Justice'.