Governing Bodies: A Memoir, a Confluence, a Watershed

A beautifully rendered debut memoir of family, legacy, conservation, the natural world--and those who inhabit it. As a civil engineer, Sangamithra Iyer knows about resilience from studying soils and water. As an animal rights activist, she advocates for a revolution in how we value and relate to other species. And as the child of immigrants from India, she searches for submerged histories. Animated by a series of questions--How do we disentangle ourselves from systems of harm? Is it possible to grasp the scale of planetary sorrow and emerge with truth and love as our guides, rather than despair? What is the relationship between individual action and systemic change?--this memoir takes the form of three meandering rivers, each written as a letter. Addressing the first of them to her grandfather, Iyer assembles the story of a man who embraced Gandhi's philosophy and went to work developing wells in Tamil Nadu. In a second letter, addressed to her father, she explores their shared interest in cultivating compassion for all beings. And then in a final letter, addressed to readers, she braids these explorations of her familial past with her own experiences as a woman of color and citizen of the world, always seeking ways to move beyond resignation and restore flow. A lyrical story of lineages and an urgently needed reckoning with the ways bodies are both controlled and liberated, Governing Bodies is a timeless work with profoundly timely relevance.

About the Author :
Sangamithra Iyer is an environmental planner, engineer, and writer. She is the recipient of a Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grant, a Café Royal Foundation Literature Grant and the Diamonstein-Spielvogel Fellowship at the New York Public Library. She is the founder of the Literary Animal Project, for which she was awarded a Culture and Animals Foundation Grant. She lives in Queens, New York, with her husband, Wan, and rescued pit bull, Asta.

Review :
"Iyer traces her passion for conservation and animal rights activism back two generations in this beautiful debut memoir. . . .This singular personal history edifies as much as it charms."--Publishers Weekly "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 "A civil engineer makes a connection with her grandfather and father over the shared work they did in watershed protection and water infrastructure projects, braiding with the history of her family stories of animals and natural landscapes from around the world. From Burma to Cameroon, from India to New York, Sangamithra Iyer builds from autobiographical fragments a beautiful song of connection, which includes all living things, not only her family, but the animals and rivers she writes about, and ultimately all of us as well, the readers, held in communion. 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 Burning "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 Grant jury