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The best books by South Asian authors

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Why you should always read the epigraph

With the dawn of a new millennium about to break, the Nineties was a strange, floating decade of positivity, hope and something called the World Wide Web. 

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Books that defined the 1990s

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The best literary quotes about hope and optimism

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Arundhati Roy on The Ministry of Utmost Happiness

Freedom. Fascism. Fiction.

AZADI

Fascism, Fiction & Freedom in the Time of the Virus

FROM THE BEST-SELLING AUTHOR OF MY SEDITIOUS HEART AND THE MINISTRY OF UTMOST HAPPINESS, A NEW AND PRESSING DISPATCH FROM THE HEART OF THE CROWD AND THE SOLITUDE OF A WRITER'S DESK 
 
The chant of 'Azadi!' - Urdu for 'Freedom!' - is the slogan of the freedom struggle in Kashmir against what Kashmiris see as the Indian Occupation. Ironically, it also became the chant of millions on the streets of India against the project of Hindu Nationalism. 
 
Even as Arundhati Roy began to ask what lay between these two calls for Freedom - a chasm or a bridge? - the streets fell silent. Not only in India, but all over the world. The Coronavirus brought with it another, more terrible understanding of Azadi, making a nonsense of international borders, incarcerating whole populations, and bringing the modern world to a halt like nothing else ever could. 
 
In this series of electrifying essays, Arundhati Roy challenges us to reflect on the meaning of freedom in a world of growing authoritarianism. 
 
The essays include meditations on language, public as well as private, and on the role of fiction and alternative imaginations in these disturbing times. The pandemic, she says, is a portal between one world and another. For all the illness and devastation it has left in its wake, it is an invitation to the human race, an opportunity, to imagine another world.

[A] startling collection of essays . . . The passion and beauty of her voice is unabated . . . Azadi is the outcome of a life of writing from the frontline of solidarity and humanism, and from a writer who is perhaps only now reaching the height of her literary powers

An eloquent and scorching indictment of the growing authoritarianism of Hindu nationalism . . . it is a tour de force

Azadi is a deeply-committed literary artist&rsquo;s vision of what is wrong with our world today and a heartfelt appeal to join together to try and heal the wounds before it is too late

Arundhati Roy is the author of the novels The God of Small Things, which won the Booker Prize in 1997, and The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, which was longlisted for the Booker Prize in 2017. She is the author of various works of non-fiction including My Seditious Heart, Azadi and, most recently, The Architecture of Modern Empire.

'Azadi!' - Urdu for 'freedom' - is the iconic chant of the Kashmiri freedom struggle. And now, while Kashmir's streets have been silenced, the irony is that this same anthem echoes round the streets of the country that most Kashmiris view as their coloniser. What lies between the silence of one street and the sound of the other? Is it a chasm, or could it become a bridge? 
 
In this series of penetrating essays on politics and literature, Arundhati Roy examines this question, challenging us to reflect on the meaning of freedom in a world of growing authoritarianism. Azadi, she warns, hangs in the balance for us all.

My Seditious Heart

Twenty years, a thousand pages, and now a single beautiful edition of Arundhati Roy's complete non-fiction. 
 
'Arundhati Roy is one of the most confident and original thinkers of our time' Naomi Klein 
 
My Seditious Heart collects the work of a two-decade period when Arundhati Roy devoted herself to the political essay as a way of opening up space for justice, rights and freedoms in an increasingly hostile environment. Taken together, these essays trace her twenty year journey from the Booker Prize-winning The God of Small Things to the extraordinary The Ministry of Utmost Happiness: a journey marked by compassion, clarity and courage. Radical and readable, they speak always in defence of the collective, of the individual and of the land, in the face of the destructive logic of financial, social, religious, military and governmental elites. 
 
In constant conversation with the themes and settings of her novels, the essays form a near-unbroken memoir of Arundhati Roy's journey as both a writer and a citizen, of both India and the world, from 'The End of Imagination', which begins this book, to 'My Seditious Heart', with which it ends. 
 
'The world has never had to face such global confusion. Only in facing it can we make sense of what we have to do. And this is precisely what Arundhati Roy does. She makes sense of what we have to do. Thereby offering an example. An example of what? Of being fully alive in our world, such as it is, and of getting close to and listening to those for whom this world has become intolerable' John Berger 
 
'Arundhati Roy calls for 'factual precision' alongside of the 'real precision of poetry.' Remarkably, she combines those achievements to a degree that few can hope to approach' Noam Chomsky 
 
'Unflinching emotional as well as political intelligence . . . In an age of intellectual logrolling and mass-manufactured infotainment, she continues to offer bracing ways of seeing, thinking and feeling' TIME

'every page gifts you her far seeing, her calm and intelligent urgency, the wisdom and relief of her articulacy, her courage'

Arundhati Roy is one of the most confident and original thinkers of our time

Arundhati Roy calls for 'factual precision' alongside of the 'real precision of poetry.' Remarkably, she combines those achievements to a degree that few can hope to approach

Arundhati Roy combines her brilliant style as a novelist with her powerful commitment to social justice in producing these eloquent, penetrating essays

The scale of what Roy surveys is staggering. Her pointed indictment is devastating

Arundhati Roy is one of the few great revolutionary intellectuals in our time . . . courageous, visionary, and erudite

Her incomparable divining rod picks up the cries of the despised and the oppressed in the most remote corners of the globe; it even picks up the cries of rivers and fish. With an unfailing charm and wit that makes her writing constantly enlivening to read, her analysis of our grotesque world is savagely clear, and yet her anger never obscures her awareness that beauty, joy, and pleasure can potentially be part of the life of human beings

Roy is of course a consummate storyteller...[the essays] are thick with intelligence and firmly bolstered with fact.

Twenty years, a thousand pages, and now a single beautiful edition of Arundhati Roy's complete non-fiction. 
 
My Seditious Heart collects the work of a two-decade period when Arundhati Roy devoted herself to the political essay as a way of opening up space for justice, rights and freedoms in an increasingly hostile environment. Taken together, these essays trace her journey from the Booker Prize-winning The God of Small Things to the extraordinary The Ministry of Utmost Happiness: a journey marked by compassion, clarity and courage. Radical and readable, they speak always in defence of the collective, of the individual and of the land, in the face of the destructive logic of financial, social, religious, military and governmental elites. 
 
In constant conversation with the themes and settings of her novels, the essays form a near-unbroken memoir of a writer and a citizen, of both India and the world, from 'The End of Imagination', which begins this book, to 'My Seditious Heart', with which it ends.

My Seditious Heart collects the work of a two-decade period when Arundhati Roy devoted herself to the political essay as a way of opening up space for justice, rights and freedoms in an increasingly hostile environment. Taken together, the essays speak in a uniquely spirited voice, marked by compassion, clarity and courage. Radical and superbly readable, they speak always in defence of the collective, of the individual and of the land, in the face of the destructive logic of financial, social, religious, military and governmental elites. 
 
In constant conversation with the themes and settings of her novels, the essays form a near-unbroken memoir of Arundhati Roy's journey as both a writer and a citizen, of both India and the world, from 'The End of Imagination', which begins this book, to 'My Seditious Heart', with which it ends.

Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2017

The Ministry of Utmost Happiness

FROM THE BOOKER PRIZE WINNING AUTHOR OF THE GOD OF SMALL THINGS 
 
LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2018 
 
LONGLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2017 
 
NOMINATED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FOR FICTION 
 
LONGLISTED FOR THE CARNEGIE 2018 
 
THE SUNDAY TIMES NUMBER ONE and THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER 
 
'At magic hour; when the sun has gone but the light has not, armies of flying foxes unhinge themselves from the Banyan trees in the old graveyard and drift across the city like smoke...' 
 
So begins The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, Arundhati Roy's incredible follow-up to The God of Small Things. We meet Anjum, who used to be Aftab, who runs a guest-house in an Old Delhi graveyard and gathers around her the lost, the broken and the cast out. We meet Tilo, an architect, who although she is loved by three men, lives in a 'country of her own skin' . When Tilo claims an abandoned baby as her own, her destiny and that of Anjum become entangled as a tale that sweeps across the years and a teeming continent takes flight... 
 
'A sprawling kaleidoscopic fable' Guardian, Books of the Year 
 
'Roy's second novel proves as remarkable as her first' Financial Times 
 
'A great tempest of a novel... which will leave you awed by the heat of its anger and the depth of its compassion' Washington Post

She is back with a heavyweight state-of-the-nation story that has been ten years in the making

Roy's second novel proves as remarkable as her first

The Ministry of Utmost Happiness confirms Roy's status as a writer of delicate human dramas that also touch on some of the largest questions of the day. It is the novel as intimate epic. Expect to see it on every prize shortlist this year

Heartfelt, poetic, intimate, laced with ironic humour...The intensity of Roy's writing - the sheer amount she cares about these people - compels you to concentrate...This is the novel one hoped Arundhati Roy would write about India

Teems with human drama, contains a vivid cast of characters and offers an evocative, searing portrait of modern India

A beautiful and grotesque portrait of modern India and the world beyond. Take your time over it, just as the author did

Fantastic. The novel is unflinchingly critical of power, and yet she empowers her underdog characters to persevere, leaving readers with a few droplets of much-needed hope. It's heartening when writers live up to the hyperbole that surrounds them

A kaleidoscopic story about the struggle for Kashmir's independence

A sprawling, kaleidoscopic fable about love and resistance in modern India

The follow-up we've been longing for - a poetic, densely populated contemporary novel in the tradition of Dickens and Tolstoy. From its beginning, one is swept up in the story... With her exquisite and dynamic storytelling, Roy balances scenes of suffering and corruption with humour and transcendence

Compelling, musical, cinematic... [A] genuine poignancy and depth of emotion. Her gift is for the personal: for poetic description [and an] ability to map the complicated arithmetic of love and belonging . . . The Ministry of Utmost Happiness manages to extract hope from tragedies

'Wise, vivid, evocative. We've had to wait 20 years for Arundhati Roy's follow-up to The God of Small Things. It has been worth it' Sebastian Shakespeare, Tatler 
 
'Gripping, shocking and moving' Asian Age (India) 
 
'Captures India's chaotic beauty. A tumultuous tragicomic story' Boyd Tonkin, Newsweek 
 
'Dazzling' Laura Ferrero, ABC (Spain) 
 
'Dazzling' Independent 
 
'Magisterial, vibrant. Roy's second novel works its empathetic magic upon a breathtakingly broad slate' O, The Oprah Magazine 
 
'Compelling, musical and beautifully orchestrated' Michiko Kakutani, New York Times 
 
'Magnificent' O Globo (Brazil) 
 
'Superb' Sunday Telegraph

'At magic hour; when the sun has gone but the light has not, armies of flying foxes unhinge themselves from the Banyan trees in the old graveyard and drift across the city like smoke . . .' 
 
Anjum lives in a graveyard, gathering around her the misfits and outcasts of Delhi's bustling streets. Tilo is a Kashmiri woman, brilliant and beautiful, fated to be loved by three rival men. 
 
When Anjum takes in an abandoned baby, it is Tilo who claims the child as her own - and so begins a tale that will sweep across twenty years, crossing the cities and forests of a teeming continent . . .

Things That Can and Cannot Be Said

From the bestselling author of The Ministry of Utmost Happiness 
 
An extraordinary secret meeting between four brilliant political activists: Booker Prize-winner Arundhati Roy, NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden, Pentagon Papers insider Daniel Ellsberg and acclaimed actor John Cusack 
 
'What sort of love is this love that we have for countries? What sort of country is it that will ever live up to our dreams? What sort of dreams were these that have been broken?' 
 
In 2014, four people met in secret in a hotel room in Moscow. Each was a leading global advocate for government transparency and accountability: they had come together to talk. Over the course of two days, Arundhati Roy, Edward Snowden, John Cusack and Daniel Ellsburg shared ideas and beliefs - about the Vietnam War and the Pentagon Papers, the NSA and the ongoing crises in the Middle East, the American government and the nature of activism. 
 
Co-authored by Roy and Cusack, and interleaving verbatim conversations with narrated recollections, this Penguin Special captures an historic moment. Interrogating the geopolitical forces that shape our world, it is both political and personal, activist and humanist - irreverent, funny and absolutely urgent. In Things That Can and Cannot Be Said, Arundhati Roy and John Cusack issue a powerful rallying cry, a call to resistance against America's ongoing, malign hegemony.

Publisher's description.  The historic account of a once-in-a-lifetime meeting between four of the modern world's most influential figures: NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden, Pentagon Papers whistle-blower Daniel Ellsburg, tireless political activist Arundhati Roy and Hollywood superstar John Cusack.

Arundhati Roy is one of the most confident and original thinkers of our time

A political critique of everything ... the book will make you sit up and question things

[Roy is] an electrifying political essayist. . . . So fluent is her prose, so keen her understanding of global politics, and so resonant her objections to nuclear weapons, assaults against the environment, and the endless suffering of the poor that her essays are as uplifting as they are galvanizing

The fierceness with which Arundhati Roy loves humanity moves my heart

Alice Walker, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of THE COLOR PURPLE

'What sort of love is this love that we have for countries? What sort of country is it that will ever live up to our dreams? What sort of dreams were these that have been broken?' 
 
An account of an unforgettable meeting between four people over two days: Arundhati Roy, Edward Snowden, John Cusack and Daniel Ellsburg. Weaving together verbatim conversations and narrated recollections from both Roy and Cusack, this Penguin Special interrogates the geo-political forces which shape our world. Ranging from the Vietnam War and the Pentagon Papers to ongoing crises in the Middle East, it brings to these topics the full force of Arundhati Roy's passionate humanity and searing intellect. Both political and personal, activist and humanist, this is a powerful call for resistance to America's ongoing, malign hegemony.

The Shape of the Beast

The Shape of the Beast is our world laid bare by a mind that has consistently and unhesitatingly engaged with its changing realities and often anticipated the way things have moved in the last decade. 
 
In the fourteen interviews collected here, conducted between January 2001 and March 2008, Arundhati Roy examines the nature of state and corporate power as it has emerged during this period, and the shape that resistance movements are taking. As she speaks about people displaced by dams and industry, the genocide in Gujurat, Maoist rebels, the war in Kashmir and the global War on Terror, she raises fundamental questions about democracy, justice and non-violent protest. 
 
Unabashedly political, this is also a deeply personal collection that talks about the necessity of taking a stand and about the dilemma of guarding the private space necessary for writing in a world that demands urgent, unequivocal intervention.

Field Notes on Democracy

Listening to Grasshoppers

'What happens once democracy has been used up? When it has been hollowed out and emptied of meaning?' 
 
Combining brilliant insight and razor-sharp prose, Listening to Grasshoppers is Arundhati Roy's essential exploration of the political picture in India today. In these essays she takes a hard look at the underbelly of the world's largest democracy and shows how the journey that Hindu nationalism and neo-liberal economic reforms began together in the early 1990s is unravelling in dangerous ways. 
 
Beginning with the state-backed killing of Muslims in Gujarat in 2002, and ending with an analysis of the November 2008 attacks on Mumbai, Listening to Grasshoppers tracks the fault-lines that threaten to destroy India's precarious future and, along the way, asks fundamental questions about democracy itself - a political system that has, by virtue of being considered 'the best available option', been put beyond doubt and correction.

Arundhati Roy

Over a lifetime spent at the frontline of solidarity and resistance, Arundhati Roy&rsquo;s words have lit a clear way through the darkness that surrounds us. Combining the skills of the architect she trained to be and the writer she became, she illuminates the hidden structures of modern empire like no one else, revealing their workings so that we can resist. 
 
Her subjects: war, nationalism, fundamentalism and rising fascism, turbocharged by neoliberalism and now technology. But also: truth, justice, freedom, resistance, solidarity and above all imagination &ndash; in particular the imagination to see what is in front of us, to envision another way, and to fight for it. 
 
Arundhati Roy&rsquo;s voice &ndash; as distinct and compelling in conversation as in her writing &ndash; explores these themes and more in this essential collection of interviews with David Barsamian, conducted over two decades, from 2001 to the present.

Arundhati Roy

Books by Arundhati Roy

Articles featuring Arundhati Roy

The best books by South Asian authors

Why you should always read the epigraph

Books that defined the 1990s

The best literary quotes about hope and optimism

Arundhati Roy on The Ministry of Utmost Happiness

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