Mother Mary Comes to Me

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

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

Truthful, moving, absorbing . . . [Roy] achieves the one thing that any writer’s memoir ought to do: trace the formation of their voice . . . The best piece of non-fiction she has ever written

The Telegraph

Feels like the best kind of fiction

The Economist

Sharp, irreverent, wickedly funny . . . unsettling, bruising, often brutal, yet ultimately life-affirming

BBC News

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)

Arundhati Roy writes in characteristically dazzling prose . . . This memoir teems with irreverent humour and acerbic, often brilliant insights

Irish Independent

Roy fans, this is the book you’ve been waiting for . . .

The Times

Utterly Absorbing . . . [Roy] Seamlessly blends the personal and the political

The Week

An enthralling memoir, which has all the sweep and verve off her fiction

The Bookseller

Remarkable, fascinating . . . [Mother Mary Comes to Me] shows us, with a gentle and hard-won wisdom, that we do not forget our mothers, or our motherlands, even when we are miles, continents or "worlds" away from them. We carry them with us wherever we go

Elif Shafak, Observer

"[Roy] channels warmth, moral clarity and a sweeping bird’s-eye view of modern India to tell her life story, which was shaped by poverty, violence, political upheaval and—most of all—the volatile single mother who raised her

New York Times

Tender . . . full of precise imagery and blistering emotional intelligence

Washington Post

This book pulses with compassion and moral outrage . . . Ms. Roy acknowledges that her difficult mother shaped the free-spirited, headstrong, risk-taking writer she became . . . It’s clear from this memoir that while Ms. Roy has lost her chief adversary, she hasn’t lost her fire

Wall Street Journal

An electrifying look at the author’s career and activism

People Magazine

Cinematic . . . dense with the lyrical language, deep empathy and fierce social critique that have made Roy’s novels international bestsellers . . . a masterpiece of memoir writing, a rich tapestry of memory, reckoning and longing

Minneapolis Star Tribune

Mother Mary Comes To Me is a funny, candid and perceptive memoir

Independent, 'The best fiction and non-fiction books of 2025'

A beautiful ode to the complicated relationship Arundhati Roy had with her mother

Good Housekeeping, 'Christmas gift books'

Arundhati Roy is just an electrifying writer, whatever she’s saying; Mother Mary Comes To Me is a kind of origin myth for her and her books, and a subtle treatment of a very complex parent

Katherine May, The Shift with Sam Baker, 'Books of the year 2025'

I loved Arundhati Roy’s memoir . . . raw, tender, honest about the ferocity of mother-daughter relationships and the making of a writer

Financial Times, 'Best Books of 2025'

Where does Arundhati Roy, a Booker-prizewinning author and activist, get her fiercely independent streak? The clue is in the title. In this sparkling memoir Ms Roy explores her difficult relationship with her mother, who was a "dreamer, warrior, teacher"—and a terror

The Economist, 'The Best Books of 2025'

Unusually, my book of the year is not a novel – it is Arundhati Roy’s outstanding memoir Mother Mary Comes to Me. Roy’s life story is truly remarkable. Her account of it – rooted in her troubled relationship with her mother – affords a real appreciation of the person she became. She shows there is no fixed boundary between fiction and nonfiction in the hands of a skilled writer. Roy rails against injustice and stands up for the values intrinsic to her worldview

Nicola Sturgeon, Observer, 'The best books of 2025'

In this memoir, Roy reveals the slippages that occur between fiction and nonfiction in writing a life. Roy’s mother, her country and her self form a set of nesting dolls that cannot nest, but cannot be understood without one another. A beautiful, generous book

The Conversation, 'Best Books of 2025'