Journalist Frances Harrison and Sri Lanka-born artist and novelist Roma Tearne discuss the horrors of conflict in Sri Lanka. Harrison worked in Asia for many years as a foreign correspondent for the BBC, including four years in Sri Lanka, and has also worked as head of news for Amnesty International. Her book, Still Counting the Dead, describes how Sri Lanka became a hell for the Tamil minority as decades of civil war reached a climax in 2009 and recounts many of the war crimes to a wider world for the first time.

Tearne arrived in the UK at the age of ten and trained as a painter. She later turned to writing and her first novel, Mosquito, was shortlisted for the Costa First Book Award. Like many of her subsequent works, it is set partly in war-torn Sri Lanka with its backdrop of violence. Her most recent novel is Road to Urbino, a story of two different men and their love for the women in their lives set against the backdrop of the long-running Sri Lankan conflict.