 Hello and welcome everyone. Thank you very much for joining us this evening. We are really pleased to welcome Monique Roffy talking to Nikita Gill about her award-winning novel The Mermaid of the Black Conch. But before they get started, I have a little bit of housekeeping for you. If you have any questions for Monique or Nicky during the event, you can submit them using the question box below. A selection of questions will be answered towards the end of the evening. Use the menu above to supply us with feedback on the event and also to donate to the British Library. The British Library is a charity and your feedback is very important to us. It helps us to continue planning digital events like this. If you click on the bookshop link above, you'll have an opportunity to purchase Monique's book. You'll also find social media links below the video in case you want to continue the conversation on other platforms. You can also find out more about this event and read some short biographies on our speakers. I would like to now hand over to a writer and poet, Nikita Gill. Hello everyone and welcome to this extremely wonderful and exciting event that we are doing with the wonderful Monique Ruffey. And we are going to be talking about her phenomenal book, The Mermaid of Black Conch, which won the Costa Book this year. Monique Ruffey is an award-winning Trinidadian-born British writer. Her books have been shortlisted for the Costa Fiction Award, the Orange Prize and the Onko Prize. And she won the OCM Booker's Award for Caribbean Literature. Her book, The Mermaid of Black Conch, was one of my absolute favourite books last year and of all time, I think, because I was privileged and after reading it as an ARC. The Mermaid of Black Conch is based on a Neoteno legend of a beautiful woman transformed into a mermaid set in 1976 in a Caribbean village. It is a lyrical and vivid story of love, loss, family and friendship, as well as the destructive power of jealousy and the terrible force of nature. I would very much like to welcome Monique now, who's going to do a reading from her beautiful book. Hi, good evening. Hi, everybody. And hi, Nikita, who is a goddess. I feel so fortunate to be talking to you, Nikita. We have so much in common in terms of our interest in gods and goddess figures and old stories and I always love doing an event when I really like who I'm doing it with. So I will read a little piece from the early part of this book. When they have caught this mermaid, there's been a fishing competition and some men have gone out and they've hooked this big fish. And it's a long time before they see the mermaid jump up out of the water out of the ocean. And then they have to catch her and I didn't know anything about fishing until I started writing this book and researching it. But catching a really big fish can take hours and hours. And so this is like it's taken them hours and hours because she's sounded with the hook. She's gone onto the boat. She's gone out and out and out and out and she's fought them and fought them and fought them. And eventually she's, they've got her, they've caught her. So I'll read from there. Eventually they had her alongside the boat, bloody and tired and seemingly almost the entire length of Dauntless. So close she was terrifying. A person there, no doubt about it. A trapped and dying woman under the water. A long tail moving slowly. Her fins working like gentle propellers. A cloud of blood blossoming from her mouth. The local men stared. They felt a sense of blasphemy. This was something they shouldn't be doing. They should pull the hook from her mouth and release her back into the deep. They saw her rare nature, her long dreadlocks flowing about her and the water jolting electric currents of silver alongside her tail. Bring her up, said Thomas Clayson. They managed to get a rope around her tail fin and the old man himself reached down low with the gaff hook and stabbed in deep and the mermaid throbbed and writhed. Then hauled her up by the gaff and the rope in the end and she came up with gallons of water and other fish and a giant giant whoosh and the boat deck was full of her. She was half dead already from the hours of swimming with that against them with a hook in her throat and now the steel gaff in her flank. She was bleeding heavily stunned grunting her tin foil eyes watching them. She was the worst part. A mess of fire and ropes of this and that jellyfish came up with her and clusters clusters of long blue veins. Seamors trailed from her shoulders like slithers of beard barnacles speckled the swell of her hips. Her torso was sturdy and muscular, finely scaled over as if she were a tunic of shark skin. She was crawling with sea lice. They saw that when her diaphragm heaved it revealed wide slits which were gills and they looked sharp enough to slice a finger off all the men backed away. Her spine spikes were flat like the spokes of a folded umbrella and when they flared and spread, they revealed a mighty dorsal. Holy Lord, nicer whispered. The mermaid lay there heaving and bleeding. They heard the sounds of her gasps. The men stared. Everybody felt it. The sadness of her experience. A woman who'd been alone in the sea. Had she jumped from a boat? Had her mother mated with a fish? Every man could feel his heart pounding hard in his chest with a sense of fear and wonderment at this half and half. Her eyes flicked over them, full of stark contempt. She fought hard to stay in the ocean. Each man felt a deep tug in his crotch. The old man wanted to take out his dick and piss all over her. The younger men found it hard to keep a cock stand from bouncing up in their pants. She was like a magnet. She was a woman hooked, clubbed, half dead, half naked and virgin young. Each man could see to she for sure. She was spitting up sea water and seemed to be flowing out from deep in her gullet. Water seeped from her gills. She was a fish out of water and yet she wasn't going to expire like any ordinary fish. She was taking big, fast gulps of air like a thirsty child, trying to stay alive. Her hair was moving, spreading itself across the deck. Numerous pilot fish were dying off around her. She already looked smaller than when she was in the sea. Pour some rum over her gills, said Shortleg. No, that might kill her, said the old man. Tie up her arms. The young black conch men quailed. They backed away. Neither wanted to go near her and yet she was now inside the vessel. The tail thumping on the deck. She was a fish and a woman welded together. All they could do was stare in shock. Her tail was curvaceous and strong and shot through with oily rainbow colours. Her hands were frilled with webbing. The webbing dripped with bracelets of mother of pearl. When she opened her hands, her fingers were bony and thin. The webbing glowed pink and opalescent. I want you, Shortleg whispered, repulsed, touched his mouth. I'm going to stop there. Anyway, they hit her over the head. They knock her out eventually. They can't bear the way she looks at them. She's grunting and moaning. They knock her out and they take her back to the jetty and string her up, where she receives a lot of abuse. That scene, it makes my stomach twist because I felt like it's the way that they speak about her prior to when they pull her onto the boat. Firstly, that there's a violence already there and I was already afraid of what would happen when they actually pull her onto the boat. Then they pull her onto the boat and what comes across really clearly to me is they sense her sadness. They know there's a tragedy there and all they want to do is dominate her. They all want her and in the most violent way and what follows then as they take her to the show is particularly violent. It felt like I was witnessing a gang rape because of the way they dragged her out of the ocean. It broke my heart but it's also a feeling of fear that I know a lot of women can associate with. Can we discuss those specific themes of misogyny in the book and especially in that scene? Well, I mean there's just been this something in the Guardian today about how most young women have been sexually assaulted. Most. I don't know if they had a figure. Do you know what I'm talking about? Yeah, I shared it today. It was 80%. 80% of young women have been sexually assaulted. That's about right. I don't know a woman who hasn't been sexually assaulted or molested. So I don't think the other of our male friends and colleagues and comrades and brothers and fathers and friends. I don't think our male friends understand how common it is to be objectified sexually. I wish that male gaze that wants to dominate and put you down and it's there always. So I'm writing about this prevalence and predatriness. But also because she's only half woman, this urge is just so strong. But also there's something about her magnetism. I say she's the magnet. And she's also a goddess. When I was writing this, I was thinking of Shakti and I was thinking of Kali and Aphrodite. And I was thinking of every big mother goddess in the world. They dragged her out and she's kicking and screaming and holding the line, you know, bloody in her mouth, holding the line. She's been, she has been violated. It's a violent action. And she's big. She's 600 pounds. She's a huge creature. And she's not friendly and all this goddess out of the sea. And of course, their reactions are misogynistic, but also ones of arousal because she's a magnet. She's deeply, she's like, I mean, I also don't know if you ever stood next to a mountain or near big mountains. They have, they bring, they have an energy like Mother Gaia Mother Earth has an energy that is unexpected unless you've been around it. You've been out to sea or you've been near mountains or you come across these powerful forces. Also, anyway, they're getting started on magical centers. But definitely there's something in this book that I think must be very uncomfortable for men to read. I certainly was interviewed recently by a very nice man. And I think he was, I think he was hurt by it. I think he found it painful. And I'm like, well, yeah, it's fairly textbook this misogyny. Anyway, I don't know if that answers some of your questions. It does. It does because you know that that's that feeling of something being taken from you so violently. There's so many women who can associate with that and also your body being treated like it is meat. That's what happens to her like quite literally, it happens to her like especially later on when they talk about because she's she's strong up isn't she next to two Marlins. Like she's not she's so she's completely dehumanized. But at the same time they know there's an aspect of her which is human and they want to violate that. They do they every every single day because there's so many men who are then at the at the at the banks. And I feel like there's so much violence they want to visit upon her because they know she is human. More than the fact that she's half. I think the fact that she's not entirely human opens the way forward for this to come out of them. They can almost as if you know the way people treat animals as well. There's something here about trophy hunting and those books written by Hemingway about bullfighting and catching big fish. Which I think is so anti heroic and it's it is about toxic masculinity there's nothing heroic about shooting a hibernating bear or lion that's asleep or pulling a big fish out of the sea when your boat is twice as heavy and you have a steel line and it can't, you know, it that's not a fair fight so there's something in it about this domination not just a woman but of nature. Sort of. It's okay it's not human. And yet at the same time she is you know there's a blurring there of her status as you know as as a half human half and half. Especially especially and I think the situation around that is so dangerous as well because they're getting drunker and drunker. And like, I think every woman can connect to this, the sense of danger when you know that men around you are getting more and more and more drunk and they're men that you don't know. And you want to remove yourself from that situation but she physically can't because she's been strung up and that I think it was such a that whole scene, the whole chapter, the Dauntless. It stands out to me so much because I think you managed to put so much in there about the clear and present danger that women have to live with every single day. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes, I don't know what else is another another way to say it but I think it is. Yeah, there is something here about misogyny. And I know so I think early on I'd read a poem. I've read this poem years ago it was it's called the fable of the mermaid and the drunks by Pablo Neruda. Yeah, and it's a similar story this woman mermaid manages to lose her tail and she stumbles up from a river naked and she stumbles the first thing she stumbles into is a tavern. And they, they, they spit on her and they laugh at her and they violate her. And it just stuck with me and it's like, of course, of course this is this is we are, we are prone to like the mermaid brings later brings the best out of a handful of people, but early on she brings the worst because she's she's monetised as well. First thing they want to do is sell her. Yes, capture her and sell her freeze her, put her in a tank, send her to Miami. And, you know, all these things come from a region where there's been human trafficking has been, you know, part of our regional history that's never never gone away or been dealt with it's not something you can rub out. So I was interested in how quickly can you turn a good man bad. So so the boys on the boat they they just want to get rid of her they know they've caught something they shouldn't have. They want to throw her back in the sea minute. The white man says she's worth millions everybody starts to go wait now. Yeah. Oh, and you know this idea of you know who, what money, what money can do in a minute, you may not be monetised, you know, situations, how anyone would sort of maybe stop and rethink rethink their morals and morals, their moral position. I was thinking that when I was reading it because nicer country. He literally says he's like no stop like the throat throat like cut the line cut the downline. Later he's like, boy, how much is she worth. Yeah, yeah, he just he starts thinking I could buy a bigger boat. Oh, I could do this I could do that and that greed switches him completely because all through the ocean keeps saying that only take what you can use. Right. And he he completely he ignores the rules because those are the rules that have been set for the fishermen within their own heads he ignores all of that because it's almost like this, the idea of colonising this woman becomes so strong because the do way. I think the book does play with this. You know, there's a story about, you know, the torturer, could we all become a torturer, given the right you know that that's that experiment I can't remember what it's called but you know if you give give anybody power over somebody else. How many of us asked myself included would suddenly I don't know become a torturer. Yeah, I think that's what's happening in the book with Priscilla and porthos and the men everybody's. These are sort of like rational people who've got family and friends and jobs that people who don't commit crimes but all of a sudden there's this big need to kind of like, well do wrong, you know, will very ill will, they don't see her as human. So I'm playing with that whole thing about you know, who could under what circumstances could we all turn bad, very badly. Yeah, I think what's really interesting is you brought up the Milgram experiment because I was reading about it just a few days ago. And the idea of like if someone in authority gives you a command. Yeah, would you do it. Exactly. And how many of us it's, it's, you know, the whole thing orders is orders right how many people end up committing absolute atrocities because the orders came from above and we don't disobey. But it just, I think the thing this kind of leads me quite nicely into my next question because what I was going to talk to you about was the concept of consent. Right, consent, because I feel like that that scene kind of establishes that she's been taken from the water without a consent and everything. And it completely it's such, it's such a complete like difference from the way David Baptiste treats her, because it's his who ethos is patients. Just, he's, he spends so much time just waiting for her and he knows, even though he doesn't they don't have the language to communicate who knows that he has to wait. Yeah, for her to choose and come to him. Yes, yes, yes. And I just found that really, given how the book started that really hit more. And I thought maybe we could talk a little bit about, you know, the concept of consent specifically around heterosexual relationships, because I found that really interesting. Well, yeah, so you know, sometimes you don't overthink I think this came from I've written two books about sex and sexuality and I've done a lot of thinking. And I wanted her to take him. I didn't want her virginity to be taken. I wanted her to take it. I wanted her to take him, tell him when he when she was ready and present herself. And then when she did present herself, even though she's never done this before. She's still a big package, and that she's still in control of her destiny sector own sexual choice and destiny so you know she steps forward and he talks about and like 100 women came with her. And she takes her clothes off and she's standing there and she's again it's like, I'm a goddess, you know, you're lucky boy, you know, and, and she steps forward into her sexuality, even though she's in a situation where she's learning, she's she's learning this skill of love making. But not just that I'm playing with the whole cupid and psych myth as well. And in that European myth, psyche has to surrender to eros doesn't she. And it's all about female sexual surrender prior to marriage. And, you know, really it's about teaching the young sexy girl maiden her right of passage into eros erotic love, but she has to learn to surrender and she's not allowed to look at eros and examine him. And you know, so I flipped that myth as well, where David is eros he is the lover, but you're hearing about what impact psyche had on him, his letters like this was the big love affair that taught him how to be a man, he had to wait, because he had to let her choose him, because he couldn't give chase because this was a different set of of womanhood, and I just kind of wanted to not quite write original womanhood but I just want you know part of every piece of literature I've ever written is something of my own desire in it, you know, this is something I always wanted for myself if I could ever rewrite my life. I know as I would have loved to have been 23 or however like a young woman, and to have been full of my own agency, even while being innocent, and to have had that opportunity to ask for sex that I wanted, and to have also demonstrated my sexuality to a man, as opposed to what what you and I and many other women received on the receiving end of. So you know, fiction is a great piece of, it's a great. What's the word privilege to be able to rewrite parts of my life, and to maybe give people who are reading this book, the possibility of what a virgin's first night of erotic love could look like. I think that was the, I think we waited, we also have to wait for that scene to happen and I think the way that you, you make us wait along with David is so beautiful, because. Virgin is so hammy now in old stories, I agree archetypes become a stereotype of this kind of quivering, you know, and as we talked about this before rape culture is really big in classical Greek mythology in particular. So there's probably 100 rapes 100 women. So in a, in a way, can, non consenting sex is like the normative sex in our European canon, non consenting so you would rape a woman, and that's considered manly. And there's some in something implied there that women or young women actually, you know, there's that kind of rape fantasy there that's what they want to be taken like that. So I totally flipped that back around the other way and go no, no, no, this is sexy too. This is really sexy. Wait till the goddess is triggered in her in her agency and see how sexy that looks. And it works so beautifully in the book because you as as a reader, you feel, you feel so involved in the story and you realize that you know how unbelievably brilliant and sexy consent is right because there's a whole. Was it you were we talking and when we said that men don't find it sexy. If they have to ask. Yeah. And that's a completely wrong. That's wrong isn't it. It really is true. Yeah. It's so funny because it really it's like it's a conversation I see happening over and over again where people keep saying, or specifically men keep saying it but it's not sexy to ask it's not and I'm just like, but it is very sexy. Yeah, like if you ask any woman, women will tell you it is it is may I can I do you like this do you want this is this good, or it's all the right language. Exactly. Exactly. And it just it that's, that's what makes it such an empowering love story is that his patients and the fact that so he basically what I find so interesting about David's character is that he has to. He, he basically opens his heart to this woman. And in some ways he resents it. I see that in the in the book like some ways that he kind of resents it he's like, I don't understand like I just, I've given her my bed, my dog likes her better than I feel like my dog likes her better than. I mean, how did that happen? Well messy and my dog, you know, my dog doesn't like anybody, you know, and she talks to the dog. I mean, I guess, I guess she's mysterious to him. And also he comes from a small place and he says, in this place, all the men and women are basically explored each other sexually, we all know each other intimately in some some fashion and we're all related by blood or marriage anyway. So and he says, you know, the women here know me and they're critical of me. And this woman is completely unique and astonishing and she's just a game changer. She's pressed the reset button I'm lost here, because she doesn't have a complicated agenda at all with him with anybody. She just understands things very differently. So he's lost he hasn't got any of his red, you know, he hasn't got any markers to work with he doesn't know what he's doing. And it's exciting for him to have to sort of to get a woman he's never met before because he knows everybody. Everybody's, they all know each other. So I wanted her to be really, really different. Yeah, to have a shamanic consciousness, and that he just, yeah, and she just she's messy and she's slovenly and she, she's, she doesn't want him to sleep with him initially she growls at him and just like, you know, but eventually, you know, they're interested in each other. Yeah. And I think what's really like I love that I love that you made her messy and I love that you made her because the mermaid stories that I grew up with, because you know disney was everywhere growing up, and the little mermaid came out when I was very young. And that specific type of mermaid was then everywhere and every story I read emulated her somehow read this mermaid. And just it was so amazing she enthralled me, and she made me feel so seen, because she is far from, you know, this this perfect pretty like mermaid which is like so pristine and so she like right at the beginning she is messy she's lovingly she doesn't bathe she doesn't clean herself like it's old stuff he has to be show like doesn't want clothes either she's like doesn't wear clothes and eventually she sort of understands and once he's got her to put clothes on she won't take them off. Yeah. Eventually he's, she's, he's, you know, shows her what to do, but I wanted her to be so different, you know, she doesn't, you know, she's just, she just landed, you know, she's like an alien she just landed. She's just a thousand years old. Yeah, yeah, at least maybe more. That's that's like and that's I love that about her story because she introduces herself to us in verse, which I absolutely loved I thought that was done so beautifully and as a poet I really appreciated that because I love that her entire voice is is in verse and her name means sweet voice. I care. I thought that was so beautifully done. But what I loved about it was that she introduces herself by saying that I, I've been here for 1000, like over 1000 cycles. What I found really interesting about it was she makes really good friends with Reggie, who is this young boy, young, young deaf boy. And he's such an interesting character like I just wanted to talk a little bit about him because he is, he's so brilliant he's so he's again a very empowering character for me to read. And he's only 10 years old, but he seems to know himself. Okay, so I always knew I'd write a deaf character because I suffer from hearing loss. It's been interesting. I've managed to keep my ears in good Nick for about a year. No since summer since June July. But generally, I struggle to hear because I haven't been to immune illness. It's a kind of inflammatory reaction which clogs up my ears and it's, I live with this I've been living with this for a long time. And I do lip read, and I do struggle. I don't have sign language. I don't, I don't see myself as deaf, but obviously I struggle and I'm sure there are a lot of people like me. And it's a long story into my deafness, but so I felt, I felt able to go forward with a deaf character. And with some research around deafness and also the region and the 70s and what kind of provision and support might be in place for him at that point and found that there would be none. But then his mummy probably would have had enough money to fly somebody in as a tutor, and she would have done some research too so she's got this some tutor who I wanted to be very progressive. And to introduce him to sort of deaf pride, like gay pride to be proud, and to not try to be hearing and not try to wear a hearing aid and just to be himself, and to introduce him to deaf poetry, found poetry, and to introduce him to basically deaf pride. And, and the whole notion that there was a community out there and he could go to a deaf university and they were, he wasn't going to be excluded and on his own forever. And so she gives him this sense of himself that he's going to be okay. He's going to get off the island he's going to go to this deaf university he's an artist his father's an artist. He's got this weird funky place to live he's got a good mother he's got dogs he's got peacocks, he's got books he's surrounded by books so in a way I wanted his life to be cool I wanted that ready to be real cool, you know, like he's good. There's no pity there he's not. He's not he's a sort of community of one he's an excluded community of one. And I just wanted him to be tip top really, and wanted him to be, and to, and for the mermaid to be his first friend, and vice versa, and that also hand language if you think about. The Neanderthals had language we're beginning to understand they did have vocal cause they did have language. And so, you know, I reckon that we used our hands a lot as well we would have used all kinds of signs and symbols and drawn things. So again this early way of communicating her people might have. I just think the hand language the way they start speaking to each other would have been very, very quick way for them to start communicating. Yeah, and also at the acquisition of language is quite a big thing in the book as well she learns different types of English and sign language and then she remembers her old language. And that's really the friendship between Reggie and Ikea so there's something so beautiful about it because something I realized when I in one of the scenes where Reggie hugs Ikea and she's not been hugged in many, many, many years because this is before she's let David near her as well. I thought that the thing that made me really realize this that every single one of the main characters struggles with loneliness. Yes, that's true. All of them are lonely and I thought that was such an interesting theme to have in the book especially right now what all of us are going through an isolation. The loneliness of each and every one of these characters really struck me so deeply. And I realized that every single one of them was lonely in their own way and I just, you know, I thought it was such an amazing thing. Nobody's brought this up actually about the book and I don't think it's something like consciously wrote, but it is there. They're all isolated excluded characters including the white lady. They're all excluded for different reasons aren't they they're all they're all loners. I wonder about loneliness I know some people I don't live and I don't have children I currently I've been spending most of the I spent half of the last year living alone, not all half. And usually I live with somebody, but because I rent a room and you know people, neighbors people around I don't feel, but I wonder how many people. No matter who they live with you could be living with four kids and a husband and or a wife and several animals. I wonder how many of us still have a sense of being alone in the world. I wonder if that's common. And if it is a common feeling. Then how do you deal with your look with your feeling of being alone. Are you okay with it. It's really important that even if you live in a busy household for the people or you're a student living on a corridor with 20 other people in rooms next to you or you're a nun living in a community or no matter where you live whether you live in a quiet place or a busy place I wonder about this. This head with another you know the sense of self and our sense of ourselves and our quiet thoughts and our feelings of not fulfilling our potential or our dreams and our wishes and our anxieties and regrets and we are alone with it. We all are alone with it and, and, and you know that's kind of comes out in the book a lot as well. They're all miss rain writes and breeds and potters about. She's okay Reggie's also keeps himself busy. No one's lonely. And even I care she's an outcast she's going to own for a long time, but they're both quite stoic about it aren't they. Yeah, I think what I found really beautiful was that even though all of these characters were lonely in their own way. They come together. It's almost like a found family. I'm a big fan of found families in in in books. And I know that miss Arcadia is related to David as is Reggie, but he talks a lot about how the mermaid coming into their lives I care coming into their lives actually brings them together in so many ways. And I just thought that was really beautiful. I thought it was so it really cracked up on me as a reader. When I said oh yeah all of these people have their own loneliness and that they all really find each other and really see each other. And I thought that was, I thought it was important that she had like a little band of friends. And like, I'll never forget a friend of mine called Dina, who said she set up this, she said, well she set up a colony in a Greek island. And she said, she was always a misfit. And so she set up a community for other misfits. And they're a bit like that they're a band of misfits aren't they they're misfits in their own way but they're good friends for her she needed some. She needed a little gang of friends. And people who love her and people who who protect her and people who rescue her and more most importantly I think what's really beautiful about it is people who understand her. And even before she gets language because and and both Reggie and Miss Arcadia Rain teach her language Reggie through sign language and that's the first language she learns and then you know Miss Arcadia gives her words and she Ikea says words, words, a speech is freedom, words are free and I love that because his writers that's what we do we it's it's a form of freedom for us isn't it and it just it was, it was really moving to read that, especially because she, it's not like she she lacks words, because you say that in the book like she has a language, but she she's forgot it's not. It feels like she's forgotten it because she's not been able to speak it for very long but then she remembers to remember that it's triggered by the love making it starts to flow again yeah. I mean it's true that people my mother spoke Arabic early on and she forgot it. She didn't speak it for a long time and it's not there anymore. So you do just remember languages. Yeah, I mean, I guess, ultimately, I know this is book is packed with ideas about race and gender, but I feel as though I hope that it's also a little cool world. I mean when people say what do you want from this book you know, all you can hope is is that people lose themselves in this small village and of these characters and this mermaid, and they care about these characters and remember them. That's all really, I mean, even though yes, there's lots here about American colonization and male misogyny and a mermaid as other and how much work she does for me around around just talking about being different, you know. Ultimately, it's just a good old, you know, it's just a good old fashioned story isn't it, it's just a cracking yarn I hope that's that's all I really, really hope for it. And it is, it's one of my favorite books, because I just think. Yeah, nothing too clever, but yet it's packed full of stuff. It's very clever actually. Well, it's got, you know, adventure and it's people tell me it's funny. People tell me it's funny. And I like that because I make myself laugh you never know if anybody else is going to laugh. I found it I did I did the bits that I laughed at where love where I Arcadia has is teaching I care words and she says oh I've learned a bunch of new words and one of them is son of a bitch. It's like, oh. Yeah, yeah, and and when life does turn up you know she's she's like I should fucking shoot him, you know, I'm just going to shoot you for that alone, you know. And it's when I think there's something in the book about how when you know people really well. You speak to them differently when somebody's got your history down. There's a there's a there's a closeness from living in a close knit. I was interviewed by an Irish woman actually for the Lestol Festival and she said oh my God this is what it's like in Ireland. When everybody knows each other and people know you like everybody knows you, you know, people know your mother, and they know you from when you were a child and so they just know you. And then everything gets closer. When people aren't as polite as they might be in general. I mean I find the politeness of society in the UK. I've always struggled with it, because I come from a place where you can't move where I come from without somebody beeping you in the car or you run into somebody in the chemist or you go anywhere and say hey how are you going how's your mother how are you long time how long are you here for the whole thing is just like there's no anonymity. And so when there's no anonymity and you come from this full place, people speak to each other differently, like shortcut. They're like pick that up, you know, just pick that up you know who do you think you are, and people just speak to each other like your family. The filter is taken away of like keep your boundaries. I think of you know that that filters come off what people say to each other. I noticed that because they're all related to each other aren't they as well like if you talk about how everyone in the village knows everyone so the way that they talk to each other is quite different as well. But there's so many. Wow, there's like a whole bunch of questions that you've come in but I'm so in front we're talking to you have been totally hogging your time. So there's a question which has come in from Mary, who says what made you choose the mermaid archetype for the novel. That is a good question. I think the mermaid archetype chose me. I began to dream of mermaids. I think she swam into my dreams but I also think what's incredible about her is that she's pan global, and there is a mermaid in almost every rivers in every ocean in every culture. So we've all been dreaming up a mermaid she's been appearing to us all. So she just happened to also appear to me too. So I didn't choose her she chose me. I love that. I really love that. There's a question which has come from Natalie and it says in the text, women, ancient and modern also want to reject and overpower her. I was not prepared for the way women reacted to her. I wanted them to help her protect her and I was angry with them for not doing so. She was bothered by women too. I'd love to hear your comments on the reactions of the women. Yeah, so she's cursed by jealous women initially. And I always think jealousy if you unravel female jealousy, you're going to find the patriarchy you're going to find competition over men. So there's real competition over men which is the reason for her curse. It's also something. Yeah, we are we do have internalized patriarchy. So who are the most problematic women. Generally, young, pretty, virgin or sexy, and old, no longer pretty no longer sexy. So it's really hard to get being a woman right. I think at some point in the middle if you're married and you've taken off the market and you can't have sex outside marriage and you've got children and you're not that young maybe you're safe to be a woman but there's something in the book about how do you get being a woman right. And also Priscilla is she's a bad woman. I mean, you know, they're some some women are bad. And she's also a more of what I would call a hitara archetype, which is she's a sexually active woman who's not married. And she's got her own agency and she ain't good, you know, simple as that. And, you know, she's a bad woman, the baddie. It's okay. But she's funny and she's complicated. I hope we don't hate Priscilla from from my Caribbean books to grammars and book groups they're always telling me they spend most of the time speaking talking about Priscilla. And I think what you did with her was really interesting because you gave her the autonomy to be bad because she wanted to be bad, not because something made her bad or anything like that and I found that really interesting actually. I've just watched this program, how to get away with murder. I really recommend the whole world to watch it with Viola Davis. Now that is a tour de force around female badness complex woman and complex acting. So I think you know we have there are bad women and there are good women in there, you know, Priscilla is not all bad. She just doesn't wish the mermaid well. And I mean there is an element I feel of jealousy there, but I don't think it's the driving force like she clearly fancies David. But yeah, but not it's really it's really she's seeing she's seeing dollar signs too. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's it's it's she's very layered. I feel like she's a very layered character, but I'm going to I'm going to ask you another question because otherwise I'll just I'll just take up all of your time talking to you because you're my hero. So Simone asked, did you purposely use the year 1976 for the hurricane Rosamund Rosamund, as it was the year Trinidad became a republic and cut final ties with England and as a parallel, the colonial house is demolished by the hurricane for a new era. Wow, that's a good question. Yes and no, I knew the 70s, but there's many reasons why the 70s were a time I wanted to it was pre the digital era. It's also exactly the, the time of nation building of decolonization of fire in a black power black pride feminism. The university being built fire brand leaders so it was an exciting time in the Caribbean, and all over the world really and I wanted to come back in a time like that, where there's a good chance that she might actually have a chance of living and and there might be a feminist or two around. And but also yeah it is symbolic it was symbolic of Bob Marley and you know various people in the region with things to say that were anti colonial yeah and the house does get blown away in the middle of all this yeah well spotted thank you. I thought that was a really great question. Because there's so much about colonialism like you said and race in the book. And I found Miss Arcadia rain ups, very interesting character. And she does she did grip my attention, almost as much as I care to. There's another question in from Jay, your book sounds fascinating would be interested in your perspective on how women stand in their own power sexually and in general, particularly in. Trinidadian Caribbean culture. Oh, I wouldn't want to speak for the whole of Trinidadian culture, if I'm honest, because I'm part of a minority group in Trinidad. So I couldn't really speak for the whole country. I want to talk about my own findings and and story, and which is my generation still had one foot in another world another time. I mean if I look at the difference between me and my mother, my mother's almost like a grandmother to me, because her value systems are so archaic now in 30 years. If I look at someone Nikita's age or younger, I can see your liberation in a way you're more liberated. I mean I live I always rent a room out here, but I've had a string of women in their 30s come and live with me, and they are always so much more liberated, full of agency connected they've got the Internet they are so much more self aware than I ever was at that age, and it's because they have the Internet. And because they've they've had more feminism being around than I ever did. It was still hard for me to be a writer 20 years ago but let's get back to sex. I found, well, I've been very honest about this sexuality for me has been one of the biggest pen penetrative sex is a normative model for sex and sexuality. Okay. You see it everywhere you see it in Hollywood film mainstream media pornography everywhere everywhere. And it's a big lie in terms of how delivering sexual pleasure to a woman. It's how you get a woman pregnant, and how men orgasm, but it's not how women orgasm. It's not actually something years to confront that lie. But no, and because it's so dominant in like this is how we have sex. This is this is it sex is like that's what sex looks like. I dare say it doesn't feel good it's not what I thought I was so what I thought would happen I thought I was going to have these amazing orgasms in unison with with men. And it never happened so what happened to my, you know, you wouldn't dare say it for fear of being malfunction or frigid or whatever. But one of the biggest lies sold to humanity is that penetrative sex is what women like and want and makes brings women to full arousal and orgasm. This is completely rubbish, but it took me all my life I mean I think younger women don't wait around. I think younger women are onto this and talk about this much more confidently, but it took me a long time to come out, come out and say hi got hi no no no no no no. I think each woman needs to take control of their sexuality. If it matters to you, if it matters to you then do it. Yeah, absolutely. And the mermaid in the book teaches us that so beautifully about taking ownership for your sexuality. There's a question from Elaine, I hope I'm pronouncing your name right. And her name, her question is hi Monique. In your research have there been sightings or stories of mermaids in other seas apart from the Caribbean. Oh yes, all over the place. All over the place there are myths and stories of mermaids everywhere. All over the place Europe, Africa, Asia. Famously Columbus said he saw mermaids on one of his voyages. But you know, well there's sirens in Greek mythology you know Odysseus saw mermaids and sirens. So I mean, these are sightings that have become myths and stories that have become sightings. There's a blur isn't there between our story mythmaking and our, you know, actually what happened. People make things up. But yeah, that if you look into it, mermaids are in Mesopotamia, Thailand, Japan, China, Africa, India, Caribbean, everywhere. And I do think it's interesting because the Ramayana actually the southeast Asian Ramayana has because the Ramayana's actually I was really surprised to see this but they have a version of it in Southeast Asia and Hanuman the monkey god actually falls in love with a mermaid. Oh, right. And I thought that was really interesting. I could see that happening. Yeah. It's really interesting and I think it I had, I would never have explored it. If I hadn't read your book and then a friend's son was only seven. And you know he loves mermaids and he kind of, you know, he messaged, he asked my friend, do you know any stories about Indian or like, you know, basically brown mermaids and I obviously I recommended the mermaid of black conch. And I said, but there is a story of like an Indian mermaid and I read up on it, or Southeast Asian mermaid and Hanuman and I thought it was so interesting that had completely missed out something that important and the Romayan, which is like our great Hindu epic. And she's such an empowering mermaid as well. So it was really interesting. I would say to the to whoever asked questions, just to look around. I mean, I, you know, whatever you live, they'll be if you live near a river live near a sea, they'll be a mermaid story. Absolutely. Absolutely. We have one more. I think we've got enough time for one more question. Merma has actually asked a really interesting question over here. She says in describing Ikea shedding her fish like self was so reminiscent of Keith's Lamia was the poem of influence for you. What said the poem? What poem again? It's Lamia. I think I've written Lamia and that's basically the the mythological figure. She's the basically she's like a Libyan princess and she Zeus falls in love with her. And here I get jealous and he basically. No, it wasn't. That's no, no, no. But I think the shedding, you know, snakes shed trees shed, you know, it's a simple symbol of letting something fall, letting an old self stepping away from, you know, what was encasing you and old skin. You know, the time we were always shedding our skin. So, it felt, it felt, I also wanted the shedding to be a really dramatic process as well. So, you know, things start falling out of her crabs are coming out of her ears like she's come. She's like a host, a host for, you know, tiny microscopic creatures are climbing out of her ears and scuttling away as she's. I realized that she's no longer a safe host, and you know, her hair starts, the sargassum sees seaweed starts coming off of the clumps and things start falling off and the cat comes sniffing and, you know, I wanted to I wanted that to be one of that to last last some time. It was really beautiful because it reminded me of a poem about periods actually that that I heard a while ago by Dominique. I forget her last name but she did it's really powerful it's on on YouTube. And she says in the poem that the thing with cycles is it teaches you that women know how to let things go and I saw that so clearly. I love that go her deal everything and I thought that was really powerful as a metaphor for womanhood. Yeah, yeah. I think we, we actually, we're right on time it is. Thank you Nikita and thank you to everybody who came tonight. I feel deeply honored to be invited. And I'm sorry if you had questions that I haven't been able to answer. But thank you for coming. Feel deeply honored. Thank you so much for talking to me. I feel like a million things which I can go and sit with for days and days I really appreciated this and thank you everyone for coming and thank you to the British Library, because this was a real honor for me to talk to lovely. Of course, you're a fantastic writer and poet. If you don't know Nikita is finer is the corrupt enormously talented and very very prolific as well. Thank you for saying that that's just made the rest of my evening and my weeks. Thank you. Thank you so much to everyone into the British Library and I thought all the questions that came in from the audience was so amazing as well. Thank you for writing this amazing book. Thank you. Thank you very much for joining us this evening and a big thank you to Monique, Rofi and to Nikita Gill. Do keep an eye on our what's on pages on the website for more information about upcoming events and tomorrow we've got a very special one for you. Joyce Carol Oates in conversation with Kirsty Logan. Do remember to send us your feedback and of course have a look at the bookshop for an opportunity to purchase Monique's book. Thank you very much for being with us this evening.