Mother Mary Comes To Me cover art

Mother Mary Comes To Me

 Preview
Try Standard free
Select 1 audiobook a month from our entire collection.
Listen to your selected audiobooks as long as you're a member.
Auto-renews at $8.99/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Mother Mary Comes To Me

By: Arundhati Roy
Narrated by: Arundhati Roy
Try Standard free

Auto-renews at $8.99/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for $26.99

Buy Now for $26.99

About this listen

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

 Art & Literature Authors Best of 2025 Cultural & Regional Editors Select Parenting & Families Relationships School-Age Children Women Funny Heartfelt Inspiring Thought-Provoking

Editorial Review

A mesmerising memoir and meditation
As the first memoir from Booker Prize-winning author Arundhati Roy, what more do you want? Well-known and celebrated for her prose, narrative structures and activism, I have no doubt that Mother Mary Comes to Me will be just as moving and inspiring as her novels and other works of nonfiction. I’m so excited to hear firsthand how Roy became the woman—and the writer—that she is today, alongside meditations of motherhood, family and love. Born out of the complex memories and emotions surrounding her mother’s death and performed by the author herself, this listen is sure to be one of the most emotional and impactful memoirs of the season. —Michael C., Audible Editor

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
All stars
Most relevant
Such amazing writing and storytelling as always. Arundhati Roy is extraordinary and has lived such a vast, awe inspiring life - the breadth of which is covered in this memoir. Highly recommend

Incredible, Moving

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
The unconditional love and understanding by the daughter, the author. Reading more about political history of India

Mother Mary Comes to Me

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Beautifully written, lovingly read. This book is an incredible journey through a life of hardship and challenge.

An enthralling read

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Arundathi's story of her mother and her own life wound together with pain and deep love held me entranced for two days until I heard the end of the story.

A tribute to her mother

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
My thoughts on it ❤️♥️

The author suggests we read it like a novel, but to me it read like a love letter—the kind you write with the knowledge that the beloved it’s written for will never read it. It moves harness-free, gliding, uncontained. It doesn’t explain itself or ask permission.

Rahel, Estha, Ammu, Chacko,
Anjum, Dayachand, Musa. I’ve always wondered how they came about. Through this book , you can to revisit them and understand their genesis.

Love is a complex beast. Hers is tangled with memory, longing, loss, and truth. It is sentimental, untethered, vulnerable and sometimes uncomfortably honest.

You may disagree with her politics, but you cannot disagree with her prowess as a writer. Arundhati needs no other adjectives—not Indian, not female. Just simply Brilliant.

The Audible version is read by the author herself . My problem with Audible version is I can’t hug the book at the end and sob into it!!
However, Arundhati’s honest, elegant, evocative narration more than makes up for it. If you listen closely, you can hear her quiver, tremble and tears. Her faltering voice in the last passage will stay with me for life. ❤️♥️

Arundhati, thank you for your vulnerability and generosity.

Love,
Kanchan

Uncontainable Vulnerability

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews
In the spirit of reconciliation, Audible acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.