Last week was devastating for poet-writer-illustrator Sharanya Manivannan. Like many authors of Westland Books, she remembers struggling to process the news of parent company Amazon India shutting down the publishing house by March 31. Her graphic novel, Incantations Over Water, published by Westland’s Context imprint, is a newborn. Released on December 27, 2021, in the throes of the third wave, Manivannan says she was fortunate to have found a home for this book, and its accompanying children’s title Mermaids in the Moonlight—published exactly a year ago. “I did struggle to place these books earlier. But, I am so grateful that Amazon Westland took a risk to publish two full-colour illustrated books that are expensive to produce, and in genres that are not necessarily popular, during the pandemic. I had the opportunity of working with two different editors [Vidhi Bhargava and Ajitha GS] and a fabulous design team [Saurabh Garge and Niranjan Mishra] keen on detail. I knew my book was being cared for,” she says over a telephone call.

All through her writing career, Manivannan has wanted to talk about Batticaloa, her native in the Eastern Province of Sri Lanka. “Both my books, which are companion titles, are inspired by the mermaid motif that can be found everywhere in this region. But, there was no folklore around it. Intrigued by that, I had started researching the absence of stories, and in the process discovered a lot about my culture, which was healing for someone like me from the Sri Lankan-Tamil diaspora,” she adds. Westland’s closure will be both, a “creative and personal tragedy” for her.