One of the most poignant, lucid and powerful speeches ever given.

Wow, my first reading of Roy's work. Intense, beautiful, heart-breaking, reality (unfortunately). If you can stand to find out the effect of the policies and politics that the U.S. government espouses around the world, read Roy.

Listened to this speech in addition to reading the essay and really appreciate the thoughtfulness of every word, sentence formation, etc.!

oh her precision with language and brilliance and beauty is so so good.

she ends her brilliant lecture with a story of speaking with a cynical woman and deciding the best way to respond to her was to write on a napkin the following:
"To love and to be loved, to never forget your own insignificance, to never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of the life around you, to seek joy in the saddest places, to pursue beauty to its lair, to never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple, to respect strength never power, above all to watch to try and understand to never look away and to never never forget."

Very well phrased and some insights too about the state of the world and America's place in it.

Arundhati Roy's 'Come September' is a scathing treatise on globalisation, nationalism and US hypocrisy — carried off with warmth and humour.

Indispensable - listen online.

This is one of her better speeches, probably the best, actually. Her other ones aren't really worth it. But this one kicks ass. Her voice is so pretty, but her words are fuckin' daggers. Daggers, yo.

An interesting lecture on power, powerlessness and the relationship between the two. Usually, I find her a "tantrumy" child with her broad-brush disapproval for any point of view but her own and constant bashing of corporations as profit seeking pariahs who, along with corrupt politicians, are solely responsible for the plight of whichever new adivasi group or dam or what-not she has adopted as her personal issue.
I read this again after a long time and again, found it engaging and well written. And thankfully, for once, she acknowledges the idea that there can be no single story, just points of view, and she's merely presenting her own. Overall, its a quick read, and a decently researched piece on America's ironic obsession with September 11 coupled with its inability to comprehend the havoc that has been wrought on other parts of the world, often at the hands of their own leaders in Septembers past.

Good book

Actually this is a speech she gave and it is incredible! You can find it online though, no need to buy it!

Well, I was already floored by Arundhati since The God of Small Things. No novel after that. Only non-fiction. Any which way, she is a terrible creature to miss.
In Come September , she sweeps it again. With the most serene of the iron, she'd form the sword, if she were a blacksmith. She talks about countries - majorly US - with power and how does that kind of power look like. She, first, gives everybody their share of sympathy, taking the majority of it away that- one might think belong to the people of US only- and then gradually lifts the curtain from the nuisance that some of the people at US have indulged in the recent past. Not only US, though.
But the thing that just seeps into you is the way all this is done. She writes brilliantly. And that is all to it. It is beautiful, soft, intelligent and effective. Many things are going to stay with me from this. Come what May.