The Writer's Parlour: Chital Mehta

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The Writer's Parlour: Book Launch

Join us for the launch of 'Have You Seen Romit?' by Chital Mehta — winner of the AWP Award Series James Alan McPherson Prize for the Novel.

Chital Mehta will introduce the book, share her inspiration and take questions from readers.

📅 Monday, Oct 12, 2026
⏰ 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
📍 Virtual — RSVP for link
🎟️ Free | RSVP required

🎙️ Audio recorded & available on our YouTube channel

About the Book

A mother who has always stayed within the lines draws a new one.

When her adopted son disappears into the forests of Southern India, Usha defies her husband, leaves the life she was given, and goes to find him — alone. Have You Seen Romit? is a story about a middle-aged Indian woman who sets out to find her son and discovers, in the searching, the full force of who she is.

Reviews

“A gripping, intensely moving portrayal of a woman whose ferocious love for her children ends up clashing with how others expect her to behave. I loved spending time with the rule-breaking Usha and with the complicated world Chital Mehta has conjured. Vivid, fresh, and resonant.”―R. O. Kwon, author of Exhibit and The Incendiaries

“Chital Mehta delivers a tender, layered portrait of an Indian family on the brink of unraveling. When their son vanishes without a trace, a mother’s quiet endurance and a father’s relentless pride collide in a search that exposes love, loss, and the unspoken tensions between generations. With warmth, humor, and keen emotional insight, Mehta explores what it means to hold on―and what it takes to finally let go. Lyrical and deeply human, Mehta has arrived as an empathetic and observant voice.”―Kali White VanBaale, author of The Monsters We Make

"What's more terrifying than the wilderness of a woman's unspoken wants and needs, and what happens when she finds the perfect mystery, a missing son, to reveal what she is made of and why, finally? HAVE YOU SEEN ROMIT? is a ferocious novel that explores the hidden fragmentations of self, family, and societies bonded by obedience and fear. Sinuously surprising and timely, this is a book for readers seeking the intimacy, interiority, and soulfulness that makes fiction important to maintaining the reality of our psyches." ― N. Jooyoun Kim, NYT bestselling author of THE LAST STORY OF MINA LEE and WHAT WE KEPT TO OURSELVES

“At once the story of a disappearance and a meditation on belonging, Chital Mehta’s novel asks what it means to lose someone you love―not only to the shadows of a city, but also to the distances within a family. With prose that lingers on textures of everyday life, Mehta renders the heartbreak and resilience of ordinary people caught between duty, desire, and the silences that shape them.”―Jai Chakrabarti, author of A Small Sacrifice for an Enormous Happiness

“A stirring and deeply introspective meditation on family, gender, and maternal love. Chital Mehta writes her characters’ lives with such humanity and care; to read this novel is to be invited into their world, to hurt for them as they falter and fall short, and to wish―at the final page―that you could have just a little more time with them.”―Sheila Sundar, author of Habitations

"Chital Mehta's 'Have You Seen Romit?' is a 'Waiting for Godot' for our world; economically pitiless, rancorously divided by ethnicity, and always teetering on the knife's edge of the fallout from natural disasters. What Mehta shows in this lively, often amusing novel is that one person's true love for another is enough to carry us home."- Tony D'Souza, author of Whiteman and The Konkans

“At once universal and deeply evocative of its southern Indian settings, Chital Mehta’s debut novel interrogates our basic assumptions around inherited and chosen family. In this keenly observed and unflinching portrait of a family under duress, nothing is simple as we uncover uncomfortable truths about each flawed character in turn. Through prose both spare and intricate, Mehta navigates questions of gender, loss, belonging, and motherhood with striking tenderness and complexity.” - Roohi Choudhry, author of Outside Women

About the Author

Chital Mehta is an award-winning South Asian writer whose stories center around motherhood, family dynamics, and immigration. She won the Boggs Fiction Contest for her story "Damaged Gifts," and her story, "The Weight of Happiness" was a Finalist for The Pinch Literary Awards. Her novel, Have You Seen Romit?, won the 2025 James Alan McPherson Prize for the Novel, judged by R. O. Kwon. She is a recipient of the Individual Artist Opportunity grant offered by The Delaware Division of the Arts and the Delaware State Arts Council. She lives in Delaware with her husband and children.

She is an alum of Tin House and VONA. She holds an MFA from Lindenwood University. Chital spent her 20s writing YA novels, which taught her a lot about finishing books