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 DESKThe 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.
