What Lies Between Us by Nayomi Munaweera

Their aim is to use creative writing as a tool of reconciliation and healing for both Tamil and Sinhala survivors of the civil war. She holds writing workshops in Sri Lanka through a program called Write to Reconcile in which she co-teaches with legendary Sri Lankan writer, Shyam Selvadurai. What Lies Between Us is a beautifully awful account of the dark legacies of childhood abuse, and a scathing indictment of the internalized misogyny masquerading as traditionalism or conservatism that holds womens mere existence as the blame for the bad things men do.

She teaches at Mills College and at the Ashland University low-residency MFA Program. Munaweera is an alumni of VONA, Voices of Our Ancestors Writing Workshop and the Squaw Valley Community of Writers.

She appears frequently at book clubs, classrooms and bookstores and loves engaging with readers. Her debut novel has been the freshman incoming read at UC Santa Cruz for three consecutive years. She has presented around the world at literary festivals including the Jaipur Literary Festival, Mumbai Literary Festival, Galle Literary Festival, Bay Area Book Festival, LitQuake and AWP. She has been honored as a KQED Woman to Watch and has been written up in Vogue India. Her short fiction and non-fiction are also widely published. Munaweera is also widely anthologized in collections such as Good Girls Marry Doctors South Asian-American Women on Obedience and Rebellion, Oakland Noir, Many Roads Through Paradise, Write to Reconcile Anthologies I and III and All the Women in My Family Sing. She has been named one of “Twelve Women of Color Writers You Need to Know” by Bustle Magazine and “One of the Asian American Women Writers Who are Going to Change the World” by Electric Literature. She is the award-winning author of the novels, ISLAND OF A THOUSAND MIRRORS and WHAT LIES BETWEEN US. She grew up in Nigeria and immigrated to Los Angeles with her family in the early 80's.

What Lies Between Us by Nayomi Munaweera