Azadi: Fascism, Fiction, and Freedom in the Time of the Virus (Expanded Second Edition) (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781642597066)

Winner of the European Essay Prize 2023

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.

Author: Arundhati Roy
ISBN-10: 1642597066
ISBN-13: 9781642597066
Publisher: Haymarket Books
Language: English
Published: 04/26/2022
Pages: 320
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.80lbs
Size: 7.30h x 5.20w x 0.80d