Sangamithra Iyer : Governing Bodies : A Memoir, A Confluence, A Watershed

“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.” For the bonus audio archive, Sangu contributes a reading of her remarkable essay “Are You Willing?” which originally appeared in the anthology Writing for Animals: New Perspectives for Writers & Instructors to Educate & Inspire. This joins an ever-growing archive of contributions from past guests—from Richard Powers to adrienne maree brown, Forrest Gander to Arthur Sze, Natalie Diaz to Ada Limón. You can find out how to access the bonus audio and about the many other potential benefits and rewards to choose from, when you join the Between the Covers community as a listener-supporter, at the show’s Patreon page. Finally, here is today’s BookShop .

You can listen to Sangamithra Iyer : Governing Bodies : A Memoir, A Confluence, A Watershed online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

Sangamithra Iyer : Governing Bodies : A Memoir, A Confluence, A Watershed is an episode from Between The Covers : Conversations with Writers in Fiction, Nonfiction & Poetry by David Naimon, Milkweed Editions.

This episode is 2:41:26 long.

This episode was published on Jan 28, 2026.

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