Damian Le Bas, winner of the Somerset Maugham Award for his debut title—The Stopping Places—has recently appeared on Sophy Roberts’ podcast to discuss his his sophomore title, The Drowned Places.

On the podcast, they discuss anthropomorphism, climate activism, myth and Atlantis as ‘a parable about the folly of empire’.

In praise of Damian’s work, Sophy Roberts said:

‘I love Damian’s work. His voice is utterly authentic, his scenes so “felt”, his nuanced perspectives drawn from his Romany heritage and a really compelling hunger for rich, sensitive, lived experience.’

Listen to the podcast yourself here.

Born by the sea and enchanted from a young age by the idea of underwater voyages, Damian was warned off them by relatives—Gypsies, travellers of the land who feared the power of the ocean.

Then he married into a family of divers. They’d seen things that sounded fantastical. Vertigo-inducing tunnels of blackness. Huge sea-creatures. Walls of eels, and ghostly wrecks.

Most haunting of all were the drowned places: ruins where humans had once lived, now entombed in the weight of water and home to the life of the sea. Under threat of rising seas, more places face this fate. Do their mysterious predecessors have anything to teach us?

The Drowned Places is out now. Order your copy here or, better, via your local bookshop and Bookshop.org.