Mother Mary Comes To Me: The bestselling memoir from the Booker Prize-winning author (Hardcover) by Arundhati Roy

The incredible first memoir from the Booker-winning radical icon Arundhati Roy, author of The God of Small Things

Arundhati Roy’s first work of memoir, this is a soaring account, both intimate and inspiring, of how the author became the person and the writer she is, shaped by circumstance, but above all by her relationship to her extraordinary, singular mother Mary, who she describes as ‘my shelter and my storm’.

Distraught and even a “little ashamed” at the intensity of her response to the death of the mother she ran from at age eighteen, Arundhati began to write Mother Mary Comes to Me. The result is this astonishing, disconcerting, surprisingly funny chronicle―unique and simultaneously universal, of the author’s life, from childhood to the present, from Kerala to Delhi.

With the scale, sweep, and depth of her novels and the passion, political clarity, and warmth of her essays, Mother Mary Comes to Me is an ode to freedom, a tribute to thorny love and savage grace―a memoir like no other.

Review

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER

FOYLES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2025

AUDIBLE BOOK OF THE YEAR 2025

BLACKWELL'S NON-FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR 2025

WINNER OF THE GOOGLE PLAY BEST OF 2025 AWARD

SHORTLISTED FOR WATERSTONES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2025

Brave and absorbing . . . In this remarkable memoir, the Booker-winning novelist looks back on her bittersweet relationship with her mercurial mother . . . The world described in the first part of the book provides much of the material for The God of Small Things. But these pages aren’t significant for giving us access to Roy’s inspiration, or as a preamble to her life as a bestselling writer who would go on to become an oppositional political voice. Even if she were none of these things or had never written her novel, they would be utterly absorbing. They have a wonderful, self-assured self-sufficiency ― Guardian

Beautifully written . . . It is a total pleasure to spend time with Arundhati Roy’s mind and memory in this funny, wise, candid and perceptive memoir ― Independent, 'Book of the Month' (5 stars)

The book has the lyricism of Gabriel García Márquez, the political sweep of Barbara Kingsolver, and the antic family humour of David Sedaris ― Financial Times

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Hamish Hamilton

Publication date ‏ : ‎ 28 August 2025

Edition ‏ : ‎ First Edition

Language ‏ : ‎ English

Print length ‏ : ‎ 376 pages

ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0143473069

ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 9780143473060

Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 593 g

Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 13.5 x 3.2 x 21.6 cm