In Conversation With: Natasha Bowen

Last week I was invited to Penguin’s Women of YA event in London to speak with some new writers about the beauty of books - very specifically, their books.

First up is Natasha Bowen, a mum, a teacher and the author of Skin of the Sea, talking mythology, identity, mermaids and more.

Brianna (TBP)
Hey! So, they’ve said I can use this machine to record. I won’t be using this machine, I don’t know how. They were like they can they can talk you through it. And I was like, No, it's all right, I’m gonna just voice memo, iphone.

Natasha Bowen
No. because you'd start doing that, and then you’d try and have it and then it wouldn't have worked and you'd be like, Well, I've lost it all now. Oh, yeah, that would be me. Yeah.

Brianna (TBP)
I'm 25 but I feel like I'm about 60 I don't know what that is!

Natasha Bowen
It’s too much! Or I'd get clever with it and start doing things and it’d be like, no, you've ruined it. Or I’ll play with these sliders and we’d sound like Chipmunks.

Brianna (TBP)
Literally, And I'll be trying to transcribe it like “what on earth is this.” Anyway! So how are you? How's it going?

Natasha Bowen
Good.

Brianna (TBP)
Is this first event for this book?

Natasha Bowen
No, I was at Cheltenham Literary Festival last year. That was my first panel. But then that was still that weird, in between, sort of stage of are we doing in person events? Are we doing Zoom? So it's nice to be out and about.

Brianna (TBP)
Actually in contact with other human beings.

Natasha Bowen
Yeah and I feel like, with Zoom it’s like, you just wanna pick your nose or like, you know -

Both
(laughs)

Brianna (TBP)
I feel like I'm not there. So I just start getting distracted by things. I'm not fully focused and then it’s like oh, no, they can see me still. I'm such a nightmare for just picking up my phone and sending an email. And then I’ll be like, why am I doing that, I'm on a meeting.

Natasha Bowen
That’s why I started wearing a watch, because I'm like, if I keep picking up my phone, it’s just checking the time, but it’s like, it looks like you’re not - yeah.

Brianna (TBP)
So let's talk about the book, sell it to me. I haven't read it yet. It's on the list for our book club though!

Natasha Bowen
I would say it's a book about mermaids, magic, and courage. I think it's a book - the concept of the book brings West African origins and the evolution of how black mermaids are seen and what they’re thought to have done and how people believed in them due to the transatlantic slave trade. So it started off being with The Goddess, Yemọja, who was the Goddess - well, she's an Orisha, But I say Goddess because it’s easier for people to understand - of rivers and streams. And she first left the rivers and streams to follow the first enslaved people that were taken. And in my book, she has created seven mami wata out of them, and their task is to return the souls of anyone who dies in the sea, back home. And that kind of stems from the belief, you know, the enslaved Africans had of you when you died, you returned home. And rather than she's (Simi), she's newly made, and rather than doing what she's supposed to do, she saves a boy that she finds alive. And again, she's told kind of what to do, but not it's not really explained. I think that's like, we're often told when we’re a teenager, don't do this.

Both
No one tells you why!

Natasha Bowen
Yeah, or here's what we believe. “But why?” We just do it. Yeah, we just you know, you don't know why you're, you know, praying a certain way, or you're not supposed to walk over three drains, or, like, eat with your left hand. But we just, that's just the way we do it. And she then realised she's broken an ancient decree and then has to make amends for that. Which involves a quest, and lots of other mythical creatures. And there's forbidden love, found family. I always say forbidden love, and I know I reference Love Island, probably because I'm too much into it, but people say like like, Oh, Can you actually have like, instant love? I think you can feel for people quite quickly, especially in certain situations,

Brianna (TBP)
That sort of high pressure situation can change everything, can’t it? Like you're not existing in a normal environment.

Natasha Bowen
Well it’s like pandemic babies. And the Second World War and you know, suddenly we're like, well, you know what, let's do it. Let's go for it. Because who knows? So I think it explores identity as well, like your place in the group that you're in, the community that you're in, how you feel about being in that place, whether you feel like you should be in that place, because we all - I think we all have even, you know, as adults doubt of whether you belong in a certain place, whether it's that family or that workplace. Yeah, I think it blends a lot of various themes with magic and adventure, because I hate reading boring books.

Brianna (TBP)
Honestly, I feel that, like, we were saying outside, I'm going to be 40 years old and still reading YA. Because A, I've got ADHD, and I think they really cater to people that are neurodivergent. And B, adult fiction is so difficult to get into. It's slow. It's often boring, it’s so dry.

Natasha Bowen
I don’t want to spend two chapters in a coffee shop. I want the story to happen.

Brianna (TBP)
Literally. Give me the story. And I think YA does that. Maybe because teenagers have a short attention span.

Natasha Bowen
They know, yeah, you’re not gonna go past 300 pages, it has to be bang, bang, bang,

Brianna (TBP)
But the best part is even though it’s going fast, like bang, bang, bang, you get great content. You get really great content, you get really lovable characters. You think about the characters that have stood the test of time? It's largely ones from content that is targeted to teenagers, Star Wars, Harry Potter, Hunger Games.

Natasha Bowen
I think it’s the stripping back everything and focusing on the main bit.

Brianna (TBP)
I agree, and it’s just so human, it's about humanity. And that's as - not even just as a teenager. I'm 25 and I'm still you know, who are we? Where do we belong?

Natasha Bowen
It doesn't get any better!

Brianna (TBP)
It never ends, it never changes, you're always you're always going to have those questions.

Natasha Bowen
And we should we should. Because we’re always changing.

Both
Always evolving.

Natasha Bowen
Exactly. Wow!

Brianna (TBP)
Just so in sync! We're from very similar backgrounds. So both West African and Celtic mix, I'm Nigerian Irish, you’re Nigerian Welsh. How does that kind of play into the themes you explore and the characters that you create?

Natasha Bowen
I think that when you're living in a country, that's not your parents or one of your parents birthplace, it's, it's harder to feel connected. And I don't know about you, but there's, you know, you're not getting - it's not the same. It's not the same for you as it was for your parents. And I think there's an assumption that, you know, you should speak this certain language, but no one's ever taught it to you, or when you tried to learn that language everyone laughs at you. So you're very much like, you know, I think it gives you a step back as well. So you can kind of almost pick the bits that you get to know or have a feel for before you may be immersed in it. I think there's also that sense of, of wanting to find your place. And if you haven't been or you haven't been very often, to the place of parents, or one parents birth place - I think there's always that sort of like, you want to find out more about that. So I think this book was definitely a way to - I always ask questions all the time. I think that's why my church hated me as well. Because I'm like, why, why, why?

Brianna (TBP)
That was me as a kid.

Natasha Bowen
Yeah, they’d say “it just is.”

Brianna (TBP)
My mum used to say “because why is the one with a long tail now leave it.”

Natasha Bowen
So I think in this, you know, finding out those stories, and then also, like, I love how they change, depending on the village that you're in, the region, the country that you're in. And then obviously, as people have spread across the world, across the diaspora, there's the same sort of stories, but slightly different in each. And I love that, because I don't think it's, you know, some people like, “oh, well, that's not the way it goes, that’s not the way it should be”, but I'm like, but actually, it's nice, because everyone's putting their own belief or importance in their way on that story or that belief. So, yeah, it was definitely a way to explore more of that side. And we don't have that worldview, in education. So it’s something you kind of have to do. You know, you might have some parents that will do that. But you it's, you have to do it yourself. And I think this is one way to do that.

Brianna (TBP)
I love that. I think my mum did it for me with Ireland. I know quite a lot about Ireland, but it's only through books like yours, and like The Gilded Ones - I loved that one - in the last couple of years where I'm really like exploring West Africa. My dad though it was like, why am I going to teach them Yoruba, they don’t need to know Yoruba. My first name is Irish in origin, and my first middle name is a family name, my second middle name is Yoruba. So it’s all kind of separate to me.

Natasha Bowen
It’s almost like they want you to as well, because the way they see it, they want you to assimilate into this culture because it's different for us than it was for them. I kind of see where they get it, but it leaves us like *panicked sound*

Brianna (TBP)
I forget who I had this conversation with. But because when you're first gen, like you're the child of immigrants, you are desperately clinging for that identity. And language is the first way into that and stories are the second way into that. So we’re trying to cling to those things. And they don't necessarily get it because they've got that already. They've got that language. They've got those stories, and they almost can take their value for granted. Where we don’t and they don't get that we're like, we're not quite here. Like this isn't quite right. Not quite Irish. I'm not quite Welsh, not quite Nigerian. Where am I?

Natasha Bowen
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And I think it just, I think it's having that - l think as you get older, you have that confidence of, of accepting that you're both. And that you know, you embrace both cultures, you know, rather than maybe having an idea of who you should be or what other people expect you to be, it’s being who you actually are.

Brianna (TBP)
Yeah, I very much feel that. So, there’s West African mythology in this book - why do you think mythology is something that people love? Like of all genres, mythology is one that people seem to cling to? For me and my friends growing up it was Greek mythology. We just were obsessed. And now as I'm getting older I'm getting really into like West African mythology. But what is it about them like folklore stories?

Natasha Bowen
I think it’s all so dramatic. It’s like Nollywood films, they’re all so dramatic that it’s entertaining, and just sucks you in. And I think when you're looking at West African narratives, there's some similarities with, you know, the Greek stories, but because I'm thinking the Greeks probably took…

Brianna (TBP)
They probably did yeah!

Natasha Bowen
Right. But then it's also completely different. And then you're like, Oh, I didn't know this, oh I didn’t know that. Like, I knew a few things. But there's lots of things in the book that I learned, that my research taught me, speaking to different people taught me. Stories that you heard when growing up. So I think that the drama and the sheer kind of difference of it because again, like you say Greek myths, Percy Jackson, that's kind of all you've been presented with. You haven't had to you haven't had a choice or chance to really learn much more than that. But I think yeah, there's a there's a brilliance in there. And I think the difficulty is as well, is that obviously West African, it's mainly passed orally, isn't it? Until like, you get people that are maybe feeding it into their stories. So I think it's, it's more fantastical, I think more dramatic and more entertaining and different than what we've seen. On the whole, because obviously, there are stories out there that have West African myths that have you know, have come before, they just, we just haven't been presented with them, they haven't been highlighted. Which is a shame. But hopefully that’s changing.

Brianna (TBP)
I think social media is contributing to that as well. Like, that's how I found out about Raybearer, and The Gilded Ones, all of them really, it was through BookTok and on Bookstagram. People saying you have to read these. They're not, I'm not seeing them advertised, like on bus shelters or anything. It was people saying, trust me, read it. And they were right. And it's so good. So what was the book for you? It's very like - you might not have an answer. What was the book for you that made you go “I want to do this”?

Natasha Bowen
Too many books because I love reading. There was a point I was reading about five or six books a week because I've always, always read from like four or five always read. I loved Nancy Drew at one point when I was growing up. And point horror books. Point horror books. I think they had that just, it was fast paced. Something always happened. You knew what you were gonna get as well. Like the formula, it’s like Mills and Boon, you know, the formula, but it was always exciting. So I think those types of books made me want to be a writer even more, but then also not reading any characters that look like me or my friends. Because I grew up in like the 90s. So there wasn't anything like that. I think the first book I saw was by Courttia Newland, I don’t know if you’ve heard of him?

Brianna (TBP)
I have, yeah!

Natasha Bowen
Yeah, it was called The Scholar, and I was like, that actually resembles my friends and how I grew up. So I was - I think I was 18, then. So I think to go that long, and not have it is yeah. And when I'm teaching kids as well, like I said on the panel, they weren't - when they're writing their own stories, they always use certain generic Eurocentric names, because that's what they've been presented. You almost don't realise - I've spoken to a couple of writers who have told me, a couple of black writers. They're like, yeah, it's only when I got to this point that I realised I could write black characters. You know, if you've only read those books in school, or the ones that you've been able to get at the library or the ones you had access to? How do you know, it's almost like you need that permission? In order to think well, actually, it could be anything.

Brianna (TBP)
Which is mad isn't it? Like you're just writing human stories, and yet, people need to be told you can write black characters you can write - it doesn't all have to be from a white perspective.

Natasha Bowen
And I think Black Panther changed that as well.

Brianna (TBP)
Black Panther changed so much.

Natasha Bowen
They realised that - I say they - they realised that you know, people were interested in these stories as well.

Brianna (TBP)
Yeah, 100% I think the social impact of Black Panther cannot be overstated. Like it changed, so much. I saw grown men leaving the cinema crying. Simply because they were seeing someone that looked like them, and they weren't portrayed as a gang leader. They weren't a down and out.

Natasha Bowen
Or an enslaved person!

Brianna (TBP)
Or an enslaved person. So I've got two last questions I'll do really, really quickly. The first one is you talk about enslaved people in this book, how important do you think it is to tell those stories in kind of a more - positive is the wrong word, but I just read the attic child, which was just unbelievably depressing. And it looked at similar topics of, you know, slavery, British colonialism. This story, from what I've heard and reviews, and I'm looking forward to reading it - it tells that story without making you just feel a crushing weight. How important do you think that is to share that history in a lighter way.

Natasha Bowen
I think it was important to tell the story like that, while it's the frame of the story, because that's the time period it's set in obviously, that's why Simi is who she is. It's not the main point of the story. And it's not in any real main plot points. I think that it's - while the past is uncomfortable, if we don't understand it and dissect it, we can't understand why we're - why we are where we are now. And how we can move forwards. I don't think that children should be talked down to and I say this as a teacher and a mum, I don't think we should hide things from them. It just needs to be done in the right way. So this book I'm wanting to focus on, you know, the excellence of West African culture and knowledge at that time. When, you know, - because they were dehumanise in order to carry on enslaving them - and I'm wanting to highlight how advanced society was in comparison to Europe as well. So I think it's important that we don't shy away from that. But it's not. It shouldn't always be - you can talk about those things without it being the focus and without, like you say being a crushing weight taking a toll on you. So I hope, I hope that people got what I got from it, which is, you know, it's putting a lot into context. And it's a frame of that point, but it's not necessarily about just that. So I don't even refer to them in a certain way. Because they're not that they're, you know, they're it's a minor part of the story. The story, the story is centred on Simi and her finding herself in love and making decisions, and having the courage to do what you think is right.

Brianna (TBP)
Perfect, best way to do it, I think, introduce that and not depress people.

Natasha Bowen
And you're getting things along the way. Yeah, learning stuff along the way that you might not know exactly.

Brianna (TBP)
So my last question I ask everyone is what does being black mean to you?

Natasha Bowen
I think it's, it's a complex layer of lots of different things. I think it's a feeling of sometimes not fitting in, and then feeling like you fit in in the right situation with the right people. I think there's a responsibility as well, to make sure that you're kind of - whatever you're doing is we have to, it's always like, we have to think on a deeper level of what we're doing and how we're doing it. So I think that's such a hard question. Because it's, there's so many levels to it. I think it's being part of a people that are amazing. Coming from a line of people who are knowledgeable. Who were at the forefront of, you know, medicine and architecture and mathematics. And I think it's being proud of that and making sure that everyone else sees the same glories that we do and us being proud in that as well. And making sure that we're not kind of being led into any other thoughts by what we're presented with every day, which is hard. But yeah, it's trying to stay true to that.

Brianna (TBP)
Perfect! Thank you very much.

Skin of the Sea is out now, grab a copy here! (Affiliate link)