Some blessed person has switched off the heat in the Writer's Retreat. Aamer Hussein and Roma Tearne are reading from their new books; Hussein describes his as part fable, part romantic comedy, while Tearne's novel is the story of a Tamil-Sinhala marriage in the midst of political crisis.

Tearne reads us an excerpt from her novel; a jarring story of a young Sinhala woman in Sri Lanka, whose labour is attended by a drunk, bigoted surgeon who objects to the child's Tamil father. It's jarring because Tearne, an erudite performer of her own work, writes a lilting prose, sliding sensuous images and sounds into the description of the doctor crudely and painfully examining the dying woman while he chats up the attending nurse.

There's no denying the reality of the situation; Tearne tells us that the birth story is heavily based on her mother's experience. Tearne's parents, her mother Sinhala and her father Tamil, left Sri Lanka as refugees when Tearne was 10 years old. Her mother lamented at the time that no one would know her story.

Hussein, who moved to London from Karachi as a teenager, reads in an engaging yet peaceful voice his adaptation of a Punjabi fable - of a mother and daughter sacrificed to crocodiles, and a father and son who tell stories of the land of crocodiles where the women continue to live a prosperous and surreal life. Of his character Lydia in the second part of the book, Hussein says that he was inspired by the western women he grew up seeing in Karachi, who he describes as well-adjusted and fiercely patriotic to Pakistan.

The question of language comes up during questions. Tearne's Tamil-Sinhala parents chose to raise her with English as a sort of political lingua franca. Hussein is fluent in several languages, and his internal use of language when writing depends on his subject.

Both writers touch, too, on the politics of their work. Tearne has received hostility from both Tamil and Sinhala Sri Lankans; Sinhala speakers who object to her realism, and Tamil speakers who object to her positive characterisation of Sinhala Sri Lankans. Hussein was keen to write a Pakistani novel which creates a picture of daily life to which people can relate, without serving as an apologist novel to the west.

Rosemary Burnett is a charming chair, drawing out the authors and engaging the audience. “It's so sad”, whispers the woman beside me, during Tearne's account of internal Sri Lankan politics. This isn't, however, the impression I come away with. As with many of the events at the book festival, I find the steely determination of writers to tell uncomfortable stories liberating rather than saddening.