Governing Bodies: A Memoir, A Confluence, A Confluence

Firecracker Award Finalist

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?—Governing Bodies takes the form of the confluence 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, this is an essential book for our time.

PRAISE

“This memoir resonates on historical, ecological, and deeply human frequencies. . .[it] nourishes and unsettles with gentle precision. It invites us toward a citizenship of care, one that honors the human, the animal, and the earth as part of a continuous moral ecosystem.” –Saravanan Thangarajan, Mittal South Asia Institute at Harvard Winter 2025 Reading Recommendations

“Lovingly researched and beautifully written, with wit, compassion, and reverence for animals and our environments, Governing Bodies is a riveting and inspiring book for anyone who hopes to connect more deeply with the world we share with so many other beings.”-- Eco Lit Books Review

“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.”—Orion Magazine

“Reading Governing Bodies will soften you.”—Hippocampus Magazine

“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.”—Samara Skolnik, Full Stop

“Highly recommended for readers seeking excellence in creative writing.”—Library Journal"[An] evocative and whip-smart memoir . . . Governing Bodies provides a crucial voice in a time of increasing peril."—Booklist, starred 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

"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 ofA Burning

"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

“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

"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 A House Is A Body“

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.”--The Whiting Jury