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The Checkbook and the Cruise Missile
Conversations with Arundhati Roy
Arundhati Roy and David Barsamian; Foreword by Naomi Klein
Pages: 200ISBN: 0-89608-711-5
Format: cloth
Release Date: 2004-03-01
This book is also available in paper
A skillful interviewer can reveal aspects of a writer's voice in simple yet telling ways. As a novelist, Arundhati Roy is known for her lush language and intricate structure. As a political essayist, her prose is searching and fierce. All of these qualities shine through in the interviews collected by David Barsamian for The Checkbook and the Cruise Missile: Conversations with Arundhati Roy. New and devoted readers will find that these exchanges, recorded from February 2001 to May 2003, add to their appreciation of Roy's previous work.
Whether discussing her childhood or the problems of translation in a multilingual society, Roy and Barsamian, the producer and host of Alternative Radio, engage in a lively and accessible manner. Speaking candidly and casually, she describes her small hut in a squatter’s colony as “not tragic” but “fun.” She jokes about her Supreme Court charge for “corrupting public morality”—in the case of The God of Small Things—“as though public morality was pure until I came along.”
Roy has been acclaimed for her courage (Salman Rushdie) and her eloquence (Kirkus Reviews), and her writing has been described as "a banquet for the senses" (Newsweek). She has found a readership among fiction enthusiasts and political activists. The Checkbook and the Cruise Missile captures Roy speaking one-on-one to her audience, revealing her intense and wide-ranging intellect, her very personal voice, and her opinion on momentous political events.
Excerpt
David Barsamian: Let's talk a little bit about the mass media in the United States. You write that "thanks to America's 'free press,' sadly, most Americans know very little" about the U.S. government's foreign policy.
Arundhati Roy: Yes, it's a strangely insular place, America. When you live outside it, and you come here, it's almost shocking how insular it is. And how puzzled people are-and how curious, now I realize, about what other people think, because it's just been blocked out. Before I came here, I remember thinking that when I write about dams or nuclear bombs in India, I'm quite aware that the elite in India don't want to know about dams. They don't want to know about how many people have been displaced, what cruelties have been perpetrated for their own air conditioners and electricity. Because then the ultimate privilege of the elite is not just their deluxe lifestyles, but deluxe lifestyles with a clear conscience. And I felt that that was the case here too, that maybe people here don't want to know about Iraq, or Latin America, or Palestine, or East Timor, or Vietnam, or anything, so that they can live this happy little suburban life. But then I thought about it. Supposing you're a plumber in Milwaukee or an electrician in Denver. You just go to work, come home, you work really hard, and then you read your paper or watch CNN or Fox News and you go to bed. You don't know ...
Arundhati Roy
Click here to view Arundhati Roy's full Author PageArundhati Roy's novel The God of Small Things was awarded the Booker Prize in 1997. It sold over 6,000,000 copies worldwide and has been translated into over 20 languages. The recipient of the 2002 Lannan Foundation Prize for Cultural Freedom, she was also granted the 2006 Sahitya Akademi Award for her book The Algebra of Infinite Justice, but refused the award to protest Indian governmental actions. Her nonfiction books include An Ordinary Person's Guide to Empire (South End Press, 2004); War Talk (South End Press, 2003); Power Politics (South End Press, 2002); and The Cost of Living (Modern Library, 1998); and she discusses international politics further in The Checkbook and the Cruise Missile: Interviews with Arundhati Roy, with David Barsamian (South End Press, 2004). She lives in New Delhi, India.
David Barsamian
Click here to view David Barsamian's full Author PageDavid Barsamian is founder and director of Alternative Radio, the independent award-winning weekly series based in Boulder, Colorado. He is a radio producer, journalist, author, and lecturer. He has been working in radio since 1978. His interviews and articles appear regularly in The Progressive and Z Magazine. He is the author of several books, including Propaganda and the Public Mind: Conversations with Noam Chomsky; Eqbal Ahmad: Confronting Empire and The Decline and Fall of Public Broadcasting.
His recent books with South End Press are The Checkbook and the Cruise Missile: Conversations with Arundhati Roy, and Louder Than Bombs: Interviews from The Progressive Magazine.
The Institute for Alternative Journalism named him one of its “Top Ten Media Heroes.” Barsamian lectures on U.S. foreign policy, the media, propaganda, and corporate power in the U.S., Canada, Brazil, India and Europe. He is the winner of the ACLU's 2003 Upton Sinclair Award for independent journalism.