Like a fish out of water, Aycayia's arrival on dry land is a troubling, seismic shift and one that ripples through the island community she enters. She's the protagonist of Monique Roffey's slippery, seductive charm of a novel "The Mermaid of Black Conch", a book which straddles literary forms and sings with the creole poetry of its central character. Roffey joins us by video to talk about winning the Costa book award and the post-colonial power struggles that the novel's Caribbean setting throws up.
As one of the founding members of Writers Rebel, the author also discusses the citizen activism that's bearing down on world leaders as the planet teeters on the brink of ecological collapse.
And we touch on the magical potential of the outsider when it comes to telling compelling stories.
