FROM THE BEST-SELLING AUTHOR OF MY SEDITIOUS HEART AND THE MINISTRY OF UTMOST HAPPINESS A NEW
AND PRESSING DISPATCH FROM THE HEART OF THE CROWD AND THE SOLITUDE OF A WRITER'S DESK The
chant of 'Azadi!' - Urdu for 'Freedom!' - is the slogan of the freedom struggle in Kashmir
against what Kashmiris see as the Indian Occupation. Ironically it also became the chant of
millions on the streets of India against the project of Hindu Nationalism. Even as Arundhati
Roy began to ask what lay between these two calls for Freedom - a chasm or a bridge? - the
streets fell silent. Not only in India but all over the world. The Coronavirus brought with it
another more terrible understanding of Azadi making a nonsense of international borders
incarcerating whole populations and bringing the modern world to a halt like nothing else ever
could. In this series of electrifying essays Arundhati Roy challenges us to reflect on the
meaning of freedom in a world of growing authoritarianism. The essays include meditations on
language public as well as private and on the role of fiction and alternative imaginations in
these disturbing times. The pandemic she says is a portal between one world and another. For
all the illness and devastation it has left in its wake it is an invitation to the human race
an opportunity to imagine another world. 'Arundhati Roy is one of the greatest writers of
our time' Naomi Klein
