(From left) Sujata Sen, the CEO of Future Hope India, discusses The Art of Leaving with Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, famous for weaving stories about the Indian diaspora, and Nayomi Munaweera from Sri Lanka, whose latest novel, What Lies Between Us, tells the story of a young girl who suddenly finds herself shuttled to America from Sri Lanka after unforeseen and tragic events. “We moved from Sri Lanka to Nigeria in 1976 and my childhood and adolescence were marked with going back to Sri Lanka every year for a month. The idea of leaving and constantly coming back, worked itself into my books,” Nayomi said. Before We Visit the Goddess, Chitra’s latest work, is “very different from anything I’ve written before because it is a novel in stories, not necessarily chronological”. Picture by Rashbehari Das