#arundhatiroy — Public Fediverse posts

Writing Our Mothers
Archive on 4

‘Mothers have such a weight of idealisation and expectation landed upon their bodies and their minds and what women writers can do is to take that apart and explore
its underbelly,’ says feminist writer Jacqueline Rose.

Whether worshipped or vilified, treated as lifetime confidantes or rarely trusted, the mothers we meet when we write them are re-inventions. Some may be closer to the
truth than others. Many of them will have roots in the life experiences of the daughter-writer. Virginia Woolf, who lost her mother at the age of 13, said she was obsessed with writing her mother. Eventually she also argued that it was ‘the occupation of the woman writer to kill’ what she called ‘The Angel in the House’ – the perfect, self-sacrificing mother – who may well have been her own maternal influence.

Drawing on interviews with Maya Angelou, we hear how for her to write her mother was to ‘write about a hurricane in its perfect power’. She describes how the influence of a mother who ‘abandoned’ her as a child forced her most urgent examinations of class, race and, importantly love. In another frank interview with Marguerite Duras from 1968, she describes writing as a search for connection with her raging and ‘mad’ mother. For Sylvia Plath, the process of writing about becoming a mother herself in the 1950s produced work of a psychic intensity rarely seen before.

What the archive ultimately reveals is that a mother, whether present or absent, loving or cruel, might be as formative an influence on a writer’s work, as in life. ‘When I read about motherhood, I want to be shaken loose from whatever limitations I have when I think about what that means,’ says the writer Siri Hustvedt.

With contributions from Susie Orbach, Jacqueline Rose, Kit de Waal and Siri Hustvedt, and narration from Amaka Okafor.

Produced by Sarah Cuddon
A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4

Archive sources:
Desert Island Discs with Arundhati Roy (2017)
A Chance to Meet ... Edna O'Brien (1971)
Sylvia Plath, Peter Orr interview (1962)
Audre Lorde, Pacifica Radio Archives and Academy of American Poets www.poets.org
Maya Angelou, BBC News (1985)
Jeannette Winterson, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit (BBC, 1990) and Face To Face (BBC, 1994)
Marguerite Duras, Worn Out With Desire To Write (1985)
Toni Morrison, Brief Encounters (BBC, 2001)
Jackie Kay, Book of the Week (The Waters Company for BBC R4, 2015)
Elena Ferrante, Lying Lives of Adults (BBC, 2020)

Available now

57 minutes

#BBCRadio4 #BBCArchiveOn4

#ArundhatiRoy #EdnaOBrien
#SylviaPlath #AudreLorde
#MayaAngelou #JeannetteWinterson
#MargueriteDuras #ToniMorrison
#JackieKay #ElenaFerrante

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001k7s1

Will Arundhati Roy be arrested?

By targeting the celebrated author, Narendra Modi is determined to show that none of those who defy his regime are safe, writes Alpa Shah.

#ArundhatiRoy #SheikhShowkatHussain #kashmir #dissent #UAPA #DraconianLaws #BK16 #BhimaKoregaonCase #BJP #RSS #hindutva #FreeSpeech #india

https://www.newstatesman.com/world/asia/india/2024/06/will-arundhati-roy-be-arrested

Indian authorities set to prosecute author Arundhati Roy over Kashmir comments from ten years ago

"a clear case of political persecution by an authoritarian government," says Seven Stories Press

#ArundhatiRoy #UAPA #Kashmir

https://howtobe247.com/indian-authorities-prosecute-arundhati-roy-kashmir/

Criminalising words: on allegedly divisive speeches

Speeches that do not instigate violence should not be deemed unlawful activity.

#ArundhatiRoy #SheikhShowkatHussain #FreeSpeech #UAPA #DraconianLaws #kashmir #history #TheHinduEditorial #india

https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/editorial/criminalising-words-on-allegedly-divisive-speeches/article68297003.ece

Arundhati Roy is being hounded by the Indian state. This is a test case for its democracy

That the author could be prosecuted for comments made 13 years ago is absurd – but also a deadly threat to freedom of speech, writes Meena Kandasamy. (Article from October 2023)

#ArundhatiRoy #FreeSpeech #UAPA #BJP #NDA #DraconianLaws #kashmir #india

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/oct/20/arundhati-roy-india-author-freedom-of-speech

Delhi LG approves prosecution of Arundhati Roy under UAPA

Delhi LG gives prosecution sanction against Arundhati Roy under UAPA for 'provocative' speech at an event in 2010.

#delhi #DelhiLG #ArundhatiRoy #UAPA #VKSaxena #SheikhShowkatHussain #kashmir #dissent #FreeSpeech #DraconianLaws #india

https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/delhi-lg-gives-prosecution-sanction-against-arundhati-roy-under-uapa-101718371339683.html

.> After the coup President Allende was found dead inside the presidential palace. Whether he was killed or whether he killed himself, we’ll never know. In the regime of terror that ensured, thousands of people were killed. Many more simply “disappeared”. Firing squads conducted public executions. Concentration camps and torture chambers were opened across the country. The dead were buried in mine shafts and unmarked graves. For seventeen years the people of Chile lived in dread of the midnight knock, of routine “disappearances”, of sudden arrest and torture. Chileans tell the story of how the musician Victor Jara had his hands cut off in front of a crowd in the Santiago stadium. Before they shot him, Pinochet’s soldiers threw his guitar at him and mockingly asked him to play.
.> In 1999, following the arrest of General Pinochet in Britain, thousands of secret documents were declassified by the U.S. government. They contain unequivocal evidence of the CIA’s involvement in the coup as well as the fact that the U.S. government had detailed information about the situation in Chile during General Pinochet’s reign. Yet, Kissinger assured the general of his support: “In the United States as you know, we are sympathetic to what you’re trying to do,” he said. “We wish your government well.”

.> ZINN: I think your coming here does that. Not only your writing does that but your coming here and us listening to you and knowing that we are part of a 'carass'. Have any you have read Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle? Kurt Vonnegut is remarkable?this remarkable, interesting, odd mind. In Cat's Cradle he talks about a 'carass'. A carass is when people feel an affinity with one another. They don't know exactly why but it crosses all lines. It crosses national, racial, sexual... it crosses all lines. That's what we depend on.