This novel was born out of a combination of visits I paid to Kolkata and my own musings on family secrets (yes, my family has some!). It struck me th… - Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

I did not think I had a story to tell…Moving to a very different culture and learning to live on my own made me see the world much more clearly…. I thought about India more than I had ever before. I realized what I appreciated about it; the warmth, the closeness of extended family, the way spirituality pervades the culture. But I also recognized problems [with regard to] how women are often treated.

It has definitely influenced my writing. I put appropriate Bengali words in among the English ones because I want that weaving of languages. Concepts from Bengali are sometimes difficult to translate but I want them to have a role. It’s complicated. How do you bring them in without putting little explanatory notes? How do you write so you are at once inviting everyone into your book but also creating a special texture that people of your language background would especially appreciate?

…some characters would be more androgynous by nature and maybe by nurture. But as I’ve continued to write, I’ve made it a point, for my own growth, to write from the point of view of both men and women. I’m also interested in how some women can be unsympathetic to women’s issues, especially as they grow older and attain positions of power over other women. That relationship between women, and the power struggle that ensues, is interesting. I want to explore the fact that things are not as simple as saying, okay, men are the bad guys, they’re the only villains…