Edward Snowden meets Arundhati Roy and John Cusack: ‘He was small and lithe, like a house cat’

The Indian novelist recalls an extraordinary encounter in a Moscow hotel with the NSA whistleblower

Arundhati Roy with Edward Snowden and John Cusack. Photograph: Ole Von Vexhull

Roy with (from left) Daniel Ellsberg, Edward Snowden and John Cusack. Photograph: Courtesy of John Cusack

Edward Snowden-Talk to me: a conversation special-Saturday 28 November 2015

The Moscow Un-Summit wasn’t a formal interview. Nor was it a cloak-and-dagger underground rendezvous. The upshot is that John Cusack, Daniel Ellsberg (who leaked the Pentagon Papers during the Vietnam war) and I didn’t get the cautious, diplomatic, regulation Edward Snowden. The downshot (that isn’t a word, I know) is that the jokes, the humour and repartee that took place in Room 1001 cannot be reproduced. The Un-Summit cannot be written about in the detail that it deserves. Yet it definitely cannot not be written about. Because it did happen. And because the world is a millipede that inches forward on millions of real conversations. And this, certainly, was a real one.

Edward Snowden Meets Arundhati Roy and John Cusack ‘He Was Small and Lithe, Like a House Cat’ by Thavam Ratna