Nina Mingya Powles – Small Bodies of Water

This event was hosted on Thursday 5th August.

REPLAY AVAILABLE HERE

We are so excited to be joined online by Nina Mingya Powles for the launch event of her Nan Shepherd Prize-winning debut essay collection, Small Bodies of Water. Nina will be in conversation with award-winning journalist, author and Nan Shepherd Prize judge, Chitra Ramaswamy.

Home is many people and places and languages, some separated by oceans.

Nina Mingya Powles first learned to swim in Borneo – where her mother was born and her grandfather studied freshwater fish. There, the local swimming pool became her first body of water. Through her life there have been others that have meant different things, but have still been, in their own way, home: from the wild coastline of New Zealand to a pond in northwest London.

This collection of essays explores the bodies of water that separate and connect us, as well as everything from migration, food, family, earthquakes and the ancient lunisolar calendar to butterflies. In lyrical, powerful prose, Small Bodies of Water weaves together personal memories, dreams and nature writing. It reflects on a girlhood spent growing up between two cultures, and explores what it means to belong.

Nina Mingya Powles is a writer, editor and publisher from Aotearoa New Zealand. She is the author of three poetry collections, including Magnolia, which was shortlisted for both the Ondaatje Prize and the Forward Prize; and Tiny Moons: A Year of Eating in Shanghai. In 2019 she won the inaugural Nan Shepherd Prize for Small Bodies of Water, and in 2018 she won the Women Poets’ Prize. She is the founding editor of Bitter Melon. Nina was born in Aotearoa, partly grew up in China, and now lives in London.

Chitra Ramaswamy is an award-winning journalist and author. Her first book, Expecting: The Inner Life of Pregnancy, was published by Saraband in 2016. It won the Saltire First Book of the Year Award and was shortlisted for the Polari Prize. She contributed an essay to Nasty Women, The Freedom Papers and Message From The Skies, writes mainly for the Guardian, is a columnist for Holyrood Magazine and the National Trust for Scotland magazine, and broadcasts regularly for BBC Radio Scotland.

When you purchase a signed hardback edition of Small Bodies of Water via the options below, you receive access to watch the livestream from home. There is an option to purchase a £3 voucher, which also provides access to the livestream. The voucher can be used on any item in the bookshop and on our website – including books by featured authors.

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