Recipient of a Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grant, A Diamonstein-Spielvogel Fellowship at the New York Public Library, a Cafe-Royal Grant, and Jerome Foundation Travel/Study grant for Literature.
Praise for Governing Bodies:
“Sangamithra Iyer writes with the kind of intelligence and attention that makes you lean in, asking how we might live in this aching world with more care, more kinship, and more courage. Governing Bodies beautifully guides us with the lyrical grace of someone who knows the liberation and legacy of what magic can happen when you combine the language of water and the weight of memory.”—Aimee Nezhukumatathil, author of World of Wonders.
” It’s a remarkable book that blends the modes of memoir, journalism, essay, and cultural commentary with the lyrical sweep and rhythm of poetry to paint a vivid picture of both the natural world and the life of a family.”—Kazim Ali, author of Northern Light
“Governing Bodies encourages us to love generously and attentively all that thrives in the world—primates and hens, rivers and soil—and to heed the continuity between human and planetary bodies. A radiant book of reflections that will stay with me.”—Megha Majumdar, author of A Guardian and a Thief
“Through memory, research, imagination, and profound love for the human and more than human world, Sangamithra Iyer has not so much written a book as created a utopia inside its pages. Governing Bodies is the work of a mind as agile as water, with many surprising streams feeding into the shining whole. This book does what the best books do: It helps me live.”—Shruti Swamy, author of The Archer
“This project brims with loveliness; Iyer writes about family and ecology and the legacy of colonialism with enduring insight and gentle, heartbreaking passion. She delivers a subtle, meditative exploration on grief and nonviolence, an international and intergenerational voyage through shared histories and a consideration of what we owe to each other and the natural world.”—Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grant jury
INTERVIEWS
“When I tell you a story about my body, I cannot separate it from a story about water. And a story about water is also a story about family. And a story about family is rooted in the earth…,” opens Sangamithra Iyer’s Governing Bodies. What does it mean for a memoir to assume the elusive, ever-changing shape of water, to be the story of family but where the notion of family crosses the boundaries of blood, culture, nation and even species? Governing Bodies, as the Whiting judges said in their citation, is “a subtle, meditative exploration on grief and nonviolence, an international and intergenerational voyage through shared histories and a consideration of what we owe to each other and the natural world.”
While vegans share a belief in a way of life that excludes—as far as is possible and practicable—all forms of animal exploitation and cruelty, I learn from these interviews that every author writes with a unique perspective, and no book reads like any other. Governing Bodies by Sangamithra Iyeris an exceptional example of what I mean. It’s a rare book offering insight within and beyond how we ordinarily understand what it means to live as a vegan. The intriguing subtitle, A Memoir, A Confluence, A Watershed, shows us why.
Elise Myslinkski interviewed me for this wonderful discussion about memoir and writing for animals.
“The first time I heard of Sangamithra Iyer, I knew she was one of my people. The way she talks of writing, of animals, and of the power of literature to change the way people think about animals speaks directly to my soul.”
Q&A with my publisher
PICKS
“In her Whiting Award-winning memoir, civil engineer and immigrants’ daughter Sangamithra Iyer offers a subtle but passionate exploration into family, ecology, personal and planetary grief, and the legacies of colonialism, capitalism, and speciesism. In braiding the story of her freedom-fighting grandfather with her own experiences as an activist and engineer, Iyer meanders, like a river, with purpose and grace.”
REVIEWS
Full Stop Magazine has this thoughtful review by Samara Skolnik who treated my work with such care.
“One of the book’s strengths is how it carefully recounts exposure to ideas that accumulate into belief and eventually into action”
“..it is clear that Iyer is not in the business of using animals to serve human needs, even on the page. Instead, she is equating the oppression of animal bodies to the oppression of human ones. We are not the only ones who feel, or who desire to be free. Iyer, in her sprawling consideration of her experiences and influences, urges us to believe that if there is something singular about us, it is not so much that we are human, but that we can choose to be humane.”
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