'...before you eat, there is love. It comes even before your hunger.'

In twelve linked stories, the characters in The Lovers and the Leavers intersect and drift apart across several years and continents.

Komola, a maid in a quiet mansion in Dhaka, begins a doomed relationship with a handsome, mysterious man. Her nephew, a gifted little boy in her village, nurses a terrible secret, and his mother flees, ending up by the sea in Chennai.

At the other end of the world, a Bangladeshi-American woman, Rox, lusts after a teenager, while her best friend, the rebellious Ila, must choose between love and tradition.

Artfully woven with poems and photographs, these stories move between India, Bangladesh, America and Europe. A haunting, lyrical collection, The Lovers and the Leavers announces the arrival of a formidable talent.