A story made of water: of incantations, mermaids, and moonlight with Sharanya Manivannan

In this episode, we talk to #SharanyaManivannan, who writes and illustrates fiction, poetry, and non-fiction for children and adults. She is the author of seven books, and her work has won a South Asia #LaadliAward, and has been nominated for The Hindu Prize, The JCB Prize, The Neev Book Award and other honours. Her two most recent books are the graphic novel, Incantations Over Water, and the picture book, Mermaids In The Moonlight. Sharanya grew up in Sri Lanka and Malaysia and currently lives in India.
Ila is the mermaid protagonist in her two recent books, and the stories are set in Mattakalappu (#Batticaloa), on the northeastern shore of Sri Lanka. We are introduced to a lagoon teeming with magic. For those who live there, the idea of fish-tailed women is not out of the realm of possibility. And yet, while these mermaids appear as motifs throughout the lagoon, their stories have been erased. In these books, Sharanya breathes new life into these tales and other accounts of mermaids from all over the world, challenging the often eurocentric focus of these myths.
Ila’s journey extends through the war on the island and the silence of those years, and the tsunami of 2004, when “the water stripped back like linen to reveal its bed and afterwards, beings that would resist record lay stranded briefly.”
It is the capaciousness of water, and the hybrid and fluid body of the mermaid that really offers us a beautiful escape in these books. It gives us a whole new world, a whole subverse for us to partake in.
There is also joy and grief in equal parts. As we have learnt from myths and folklore, loving and living between worlds is a tenuous, precarious thing. With #mermaids forfeiting their fishy limbs for a mortal existence, and the existence of curses, black magic, trickery, blood betrayals, bewitchery, and broken covenants.
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