It’s her first work of fiction since the hugely successful, mightily awarded and profusely translated God of Small Things. Arundhati Roy’s The Briefing is an allegory, a powerful tale about climate change, the war on terror and corporate raj. Outlook has an excerpt as well as an interview with the author. First, the excerpt:
Arundhati Roy
My greetings. I’m sorry I’m not here with you today but perhaps it’s just as well. In times such as these, it’s best not to reveal ourselves completely, not even to each other.
If you step over the line and into the circle, you may be able to hear better. Mind the chalk on your shoes.
I know many of you have travelled great distances to be here. Have you seen all there is to see? The pillbox batteries, the ovens, the ammunition depots with cavity floors? Did you visit the workers’ mass grave? Have you studied the plans carefully? Would you say it’s beautiful, this fort? They say it sits astride the mountains like a defiant lion.
And, in an interview to Outlook, Arundhati Roy talks about The Briefing, her second book and her approach to fiction and non-fiction:
This is your first piece of published fiction since The God of Small Things; and you are also writing your second book. How hard or easy is it to write fiction after a gap of over a decade?
Well this is only a little shard of fiction…I don’t think we should make too much of it. It cannot in any way be compared to writing a novel…but writing fiction — shard or otherwise — is a delight. Like dancing after walking.
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