2025-08-30

A guide to reading Arundhati Roy: From ‘The God of Small Things’ to ‘Mother Mary Comes to Me’ | Books and Literature News - The Indian Express

A guide to reading Arundhati Roy: From ‘The God of Small Things’ to ‘Mother Mary Comes to Me’ | Books and Literature News - The Indian Express

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Books and Literature
A guide to reading Arundhati Roy: From 'The God of Small Things' to 'Mother Mary Comes to Me'
A guide to reading Arundhati Roy: From ‘The God of Small Things’ to ‘Mother Mary Comes to Me’
From Booker-winning fiction to incendiary essays, Arundhati Roy has emerged as a defiant voice in literature and politics. With her first memoir arriving, here’s how to navigate her remarkable body of work.
By: Express Web Desk Written by Aishwarya Khosla
Updated: August 29, 2025 02:38 PM IST

3 min read

Arundhati Roy, author of The God of Small Things and The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, will release her first memoir, Mother Mary Comes to Me. (Source: Penguin)

In September, Arundhati Roy will publish Mother Mary Comes to Me, her first memoir. Written after the death of her mother, Mary, an educator, activist and formidable presence in her daughter’s life, the book promises to be both an intimate reckoning and a continuation of Roy’s lifelong project to chart the entanglement of love, politics and freedom.

For those new to Roy, or for readers keen to revisit her work, here is a guide to where to begin.

The novels

Arundhati Roy’s fiction includes The God of Small Things (1997) and The Ministry of Utmost Happiness (2017). (Source: Penguin)
The God of Small Things (1997)

Roy’s debut novel was a sensation. A Booker prize winner that went on to sell millions, it is set in Kerala and tells the story of twins, Rahel and Estha, and the “Love Laws” that destroy their family. Lyrical, experimental and heartbreaking, it remains a touchstone of postcolonial literature, and a reminder of Roy’s ability to turn local tragedy into universal resonance.
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The Ministry of Utmost Happiness (2017)

Two decades later, Roy returned with a very different kind of novel:, which was sprawling, fragmented, full of voices. It begins with Anjum, a transgender woman who lives in a Delhi graveyard, before moving through the politics of Kashmir, the wreckage of war and the precarious lives of outsiders. Longlisted for the Booker, it showed Roy’s refusal to separate the personal from the political, or the novel from the world.

The essays that made her a public intellectual

Arundhati Roy’s nonfiction that cemented her role as a critic of power. (Source: Penguin)

If her fiction brought global acclaim, it is her nonfiction that cemented her role as a critic of power, both in India and abroad.

My Seditious Heart (2019): A collection of two decades of political essays, from India’s nuclear tests to the ravages of neoliberalism.

Azadi (2020): Shorter, sharper, written in the shadow of the pandemic and authoritarian politics. The book is banned in Jammu & Kashmir.
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The Architecture of Modern Empire (2023): Conversations with journalist David Barsamian, tracing themes of war, nationalism and resistance over 20 years.

Things That Can and Cannot Be Said (2016, with John Cusack): A brief but urgent text, built around conversations with Edward Snowden and Daniel Ellsberg, about surveillance, secrecy and empire.

Also Read | 7 books that faced bans in India and why they were controversial
How to read her

📌If you want to see where it all began, start with The God of Small Things.
📌 If you’re drawn to her politics, pick up Azadi or My Seditious Heart.
📌If you want to understand the breadth of her imagination, read The Ministry of Utmost Happiness.
📌 And if you are looking for Roy herself, wait for Mother Mary Comes to Me.

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Arundhati Roy

Goodreads Author

Born

in Shillong, Meghalaya, India

Genre

Literature & Fiction, Politics

Member Since

May 2017

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Arundhati Roy is an Indian writer who is also an activist who focuses on issues related to social justice and economic inequality. She won the Booker Prize in 1997 for her novel, The God of Small Things, and has also written two screenplays and several collections of essays.

For her work as an activist she received the Cultural Freedom Prize awarded by the Lannan Foundation in 2002.

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“Ask me a question.” Arundhati Roy

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Arundhati Roy’s books

Average rating: 3.93 · 385,537 ratings · 30,145 reviews · 117 distinct works • Similar authors

	The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy (Goodreads Author) 3.96 avg rating — 318,557 ratings — published 1997 — 2 editions	Want to Read Rate this book 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Ministry of Utmost Happiness by Arundhati Roy (Goodreads Author) 3.55 avg rating — 38,186 ratings — published 2017 — 114 editions	Rate this book 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Azadi: Freedom. Fascism. Fiction by Arundhati Roy (Goodreads Author) 4.10 avg rating — 3,664 ratings — published 2020 — 35 editions	Rate this book 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Capitalism: A Ghost Story by Arundhati Roy (Goodreads Author) 3.94 avg rating — 2,967 ratings — published 2014 — 26 editions	Rate this book 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Doctor and the Saint: The Ambedkar - Gandhi Debate by Arundhati Roy (Goodreads Author) 4.32 avg rating — 2,561 ratings — published 2017 — 10 editions	Want to Read Rate this book 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	An Ordinary Person's Guide to Empire by Arundhati Roy (Goodreads Author) 4.01 avg rating — 2,188 ratings — published 2003 — 20 editions	Rate this book 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Algebra of Infinite Justice by Arundhati Roy (Goodreads Author) 3.99 avg rating — 2,132 ratings — published 2001 — 22 editions	Rate this book 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Walking With The Comrades by Arundhati Roy (Goodreads Author) 4.15 avg rating — 2,002 ratings — published 2010 — 23 editions	Rate this book 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Field Notes on Democracy: Listening to Grasshoppers by Arundhati Roy (Goodreads Author) really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 1,948 ratings — published 2009 — 33 editions	Rate this book 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Cost of Living by Arundhati Roy (Goodreads Author) 4.05 avg rating — 1,374 ratings — published 1999 — 17 editions	Rate this book 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

More books by Arundhati Roy…

82 posts
Arundhati Roy's Blog

A perfect day for democracy

Arundhati Roy

Wasn’t it? Yesterday I mean. Spring announced itself in Delhi. The sun was out, and the Law took its Course. Just before breakfast, Afzal Guru, prime accused in the 2001 Parliament Attack was secretly hanged, and his body was interred in Tihar Jail. Was he buried next to Maqbool Butt? (The other Kashmiri who was hanged in Tihar in 1984. Kashmiris will mark that anniversary tomorrow.) Read more of this blog post »

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