‘Writing demands confronting pain’: Arundhati Roy after Mathrubhumi Book of the Year 2026 win

Author Arundhati Roy was awarded the Mathrubhumi Book of the Year Award 2026 for her memoir ‘'Mother Mary Comes to Me'’ on Wednesday in Thiruvananthapuram.

Announcing the award, Mathrubhumi Managing Director M V Shreyams Kumar said the jury chose the book for its refusal to compromise with grief, memory, or truth. He noted that the memoir stands out for being deeply personal while also engaging with larger ethical and social realities. The award was presented by M V Shreyams Kumar along with Mayura M S, Director – Digital Business, Mathrubhumi, in the presence of Chairman P. V. Chandran.

Accepting the honour, Roy said 'Mother Mary Comes to Me' was not a book she had planned to write, but one she ultimately could not avoid. She described the process as emotionally demanding, saying it required confronting grief, fear, love, and memory directly. “For a writer, not addressing what is most immediate and painful is a form of self-censorship,” she said.

The memoir explores Roy’s relationship with her mother, Mary Roy—an educator, legal reformer, and public figure known for challenging entrenched systems. Roy spoke of losing not only her mother, but also what she described as her most enduring and complicated subject. She characterised her mother as “both shelter and storm,” adding that the book holds together love and conflict without attempting to smooth over contradictions. The session combined personal reflection with wider questions about writing, politics, and moral responsibility.

Mary Roy as ‘shelter and storm’

The memoir centres on Roy’s relationship with her mother, Mary Roy—an educator and legal reformer known for challenging entrenched systems. Roy described losing not only her mother but also what she called her most complex and enduring subject. She spoke of her mother as “both shelter and storm,” saying the book holds affection and conflict together without softening either.

Roy reflected on leaving home at the age of sixteen in her book, explaining that the decision was not driven by estrangement but by the need to continue learning. She said staying would have made growth impossible. After she left, mother and daughter did not meet or speak for several years. The memoir records the emotional cost of independence and separation rather than attempting

She also addressed her long-standing discomfort with public literary platforms, linking it to political realities rather than abstraction. Roy referred to cultural spaces supported by corporate interests connected to displacement and violence in forest regions she knows personally. While acknowledging that there are no uncomplicated moral positions in a globalised world, she stressed the importance of remaining attentive to the politics embedded in cultural institutions.

Why the personal is always political

Responding to questions, Roy rejected rigid distinctions between the personal and the political in literature. She said neither she nor her mother lived insulated lives, and that both were shaped by their historical moments. Her fiction, essays, memoirs, and political writing, she said, form “one continuous body of work” driven by a search for freedom, integrity, and honesty.

On literature and education, Roy cautioned against separating aesthetic value from political urgency, particularly as global crises intensify. At the same time, she emphasised that political commitment cannot excuse weak artistic standards. Literature, she said, must remain accountable both ethically and artistically.

Roy concluded by saying that awards and recognition have never been her primary motivation. “The most enduring prison is the one inside the mind,” she said, adding that remaining faithful to one’s work, even at personal cost, is the discipline she values most. She accepted the award on behalf of herself, her brother, and her mother.