…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, t… - Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

I spent childhood vacations with my grandfather in a little village three hours outside of Kolkata. At night, he would bring me and my cousins together, light a kerosene lamp, because there was no electricity, and tell us wonderful stories from folktales, fairy tales, and epics. Sometimes he’d tell family stories, or make up ghost stories. I enjoyed it at the time but didn’t realize what an effect it would have on me. It made me understand the power of storytelling, and how, through stories, so much is communicated and passed on from generation to generation.

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 that that's an element that transcends culture and country -- the family secret, things we consider shameful or dangerous and keep hidden from outsiders. And what a burden this can become. I was also musing on how the inability to live in amity with difference can cause so much strife and grief, both in the larger political arena and in the home. All these came together in Oleander Girl.

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?