2 min readUpdated: Mar 26, 2026 05:04 PM IST
Booker Prize-winning author Arundhati Roy is on the shortlist for the 2026 Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction for her vaunted memoir Mother Mary Comes to Me, in which shetraces her life from childhood in Kerala to the present.
At the centre of the memoir is Mary Roy, her mother, a woman she calls “my shelter and my storm.” Mary Roy was a formidable force in her own right. In 1986, she won a landmark Supreme Court case granting Syrian Christian women in Kerala equal inheritance rights. However, she was also a woman with foibles and high expectations from her children. First, Arundhati ran from her, and then, in grief, she returns to her.
Arundhati Roy does not sentimentalise her mother or absolve herself, and in doing so refuses the tidy arc of reconciliation. She, instead, gives us a portrait of a relationship built on love and damage in equal measure, and a meditation on the inheritance of temperament from our parents.
The shortlist
Mother Mary Comes to Mejoins five other titles on the shortlist:
Arundhati Roy’s Mother Mary Comes to Me
📌 The Finest Hotel in Kabul: A People’s History of Afghanistan by Lyse Doucet (Hutchinson Heinemann).
📌 Art Cure: The Science of How the Arts Transform Our Health by Daisy Fancourt (Cornerstone Press).
📌 Artists, Siblings, Visionaries: The Lives and Loves of Gwen and Augustus John by Judith Mackrell (Picador).
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📌 Hotel Exile: Paris in the Shadow of War by Jane Rogoyska (Allen Lane).
📌 Nation of Strangers: Rebuilding Home in the 21st Century by Ece Temelkuran (Canongate).
The six books span Asia, Europe, and the Middle East, examining themes of migration, conflict, creativity, and connection. Chair of Judges Thangam Debbonaire describes the shortlist as “timely and timeless,” a testament to the power of women’s non-fiction in an era of mis- and dis-information.
The winner will be announced on 11 June 2026 at the Women’s Prize Trust’s summer party in London, receiving £30,000 and a limited-edition sculpture.
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