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Arundhati Roy on castes and outcasts

Cultural discussion programme. Arundhati Roy, Hattie Naylor, Damian Le Bas and Daniel Finkelstein tell stories of outcasts to Andrew Marr.

Booker Prize-winning novelist Arundhati Roy's latest book weaves together the lives of the misfits and outcasts from India's bustling streets. Roy is famous as an advocate for the most vulnerable and dehumanised in Indian society. She tells Andrew Marr how her main character Anjum builds a small paradise for the dispossessed in a graveyard in Delhi.

Ivan Mishukov walked out of his Moscow flat aged four and spent two years living on the city streets, where he found a home among a pack of wild dogs. Playwright Hattie Naylor used this true and extraordinary story as the basis for a play and now a film, Lek and the Dogs. She explores how the human world failed to look after the child, but how his kindness won the trust and protection of street dogs.

Damian Le Bas grew up surrounded by Gypsy history from his great grandmother. He sets out on the road to discover Travellers' stopping places and to understand how the romanticised stories of the past were replaced by the critical, outcast image of present-day Gypsies.

The columnist and Conservative Peer Daniel Finkelstein appears to be the ultimate establishment insider. But his parents were refugees who were forced to move across Europe because of antisemitism. He believes their desire for rootedness and belonging underlines his own politics.

Producer: Katy Hickman

Picture: Arundhati Roy (credit Mayank Austen Soofi).

Available now

43 minutes

Last on

Mon 4 Jun 2018 21:30

Arundhati Roy

Arundhati Roy is an award-winning author. Her book The God of Small Things, won the Man Booker Prize in 1997 and has since been translated into more than forty languages. 

The Ministry of Utmost Happiness is published by Hamish Hamilton.

Hattie Naylor

Hattie Naylor is a playwright and radio drama writer and has won several national and international awards for her plays.

The experimental film Lek and the Dogs, to be released on 8th June, is an adaptation of her 2010 play, Ivan and the Dogs.

Damian Le Bas

Damian Le Bas was born into a Gypsy family in Britain and was formerly the editor  of Travellers’ Times, Britain’s only national magazine for Gypsies and Travellers.

The Stopping Places is published by Chatto & Windus.

Daniel Finkelstein

Daniel Finkelstein sits in the House of Lords as a Conservative. He has been the executive editor of The Times, chairman of Policy Exchange and he is now a columnist for The Times and the Jewish Chronicle.

Credits

Role Contributor
Presenter Andrew Marr
Interviewed Guest Arundhati Roy
Interviewed Guest Hattie Naylor
Interviewed Guest Damian Le Bas
Interviewed Guest Daniel Finkelstein
Producer Katy Hickman

Broadcasts

  • Mon 4 Jun 2018 09:00
  • Mon 4 Jun 2018 21:30

Podcast