Mother Mary Comes To Me

By: Arundhati Roy

Narrated by: Arundhati Roy

Brought to you by Penguin.

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER

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.

'Brave and absorbing' Guardian

'Beautifully written...It's 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 best piece of non-fiction she has ever written' The Telegraph

© Arundhati Roy 2025 (P) Penguin Audio 2025

Critic reviews

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

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

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

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

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)

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)

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

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

Arundhati Roy, India’s finest writer by far, revealed much, with characteristic candour and wit, in her long-awaited memoir Mother Mary Comes to Me

Feels like the best kind of fiction

A marvelous and moving account of parent child conflict and its resolution.

This did not disappoint and was a thoughtful and thought provoking study of conflict and love coexisting in a parent child relationship.

Can you ever love a parent enough?

An honest and painful portrayal of a difficult relationship. You clearly see how her childhood shaped her and then you marvel at who she rose to become, notwithstanding. It was a bit melancholic, but also hopeful. I only wished her joys had a longer tenure. I felt like this memoir did not seek to entertain but to lay her look to the horizon bare in as much honesty as she could bear. I appreciated this invitation into her world.

What a life!

A moving tale of a life well lived.
Quirky and unique.
Strong women who will inspire generations that follow.
AR's life is a continuum of Mart Roy's.
Hat's off to AR!

Just brilliant

I love Arundhati Roy and her narration. She is a force of nature. Everyone should read (or listen) to this book.

Heartfelt, honest, vulnerable and relatable biography

Child-Parent relationships remain complex mindfields, especially when view from a distance after the passing of the parent for the adult child. Perspective can bring a definite clarity and that is what this book demonstrates. How we can triumph and thrive as adult kids, in spite of or maybe because of our Child-Parent trauma that shaped us to be the people we are today.