Letting Go: The Art of Creating Characters and Raising Children (Jai Chakrabarti)

Award-winning author Jai Chakrabarti explores how art serves as both lifeline and caretaking tool during humanity's darkest moments, as well as during a typical day of working and parenting.Drawing from his novel "A Play for the End of the World," Chakrabarti shares the extraordinary true story of educator Janusz Korczak staging Rabindranath Tagore's play "The Post Office" with orphans in the Warsaw Ghetto just weeks before their deportation to concentration camps.When discussing his writing process, Chakrabarti reveals how fiction functions as an "empathy machine," allowing both creator and audience to cross cultural boundaries and inhabit others' experiences. He draws an illuminating parallel between creative work and parenting. Both require "a willingness to imagine them in their fullness" while accepting that children and characters alike "become who they become" regardless of our intentions. Hear Chakrabarti read from “A Play for the End of the World,” as well as from his short story "Lilavati's Fire," from his award-winning collection “A Small Sacrifice for an Enormous Happiness.”