Come Septermber by Arundhati Roy

[Bob Rogers <brogers@xxxxxxx>]

[ URL subbed for text. ]


Come September
by Arundhati Roy
Lensic Performing Arts Center; September 18, 2002
via ZNET (www.zmag.org/weluser.htm)

Thank you. I wish I could see you all better but it's quite dark out there.
I'm so delighted to be here, and I'm so delighted that Howard Zinn is here
to introduce me because I've never met him before but I think he's such a
magical human being. Thank you, Howard. [Applause]

Just now, Howard asked me how do you decide what event or lecture you say
yes to and how do you decide what you say no to? And I said I think it's
perhaps one out of fifty on the average that I agree to do and I am very
happy and proud to be doing this one because I know that those who have
gone before me are people that I really admire and respect. So thank you to
the Lannan Foundation for inviting me.

I have so many things to say and I hope I don't take too long to say them
to you. I'm a writer, and so I've actually written what I want to say, for
two reasons. One, because I'm sure that you are much more interested in the
way I write than in the way I speak. And, second, because the things I have
to say are complicated, dangerous things in these dangerous times and I
think we have to be very, very precise about what we're saying and how we
say them and the language that we use. So I hope it's okay if I read it out
to you.

My talk today is called "Come September."


[continued at:

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=40&ItemID=2404
]


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