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Books

Fishy women: the mermaid in folklore, art and literature

Sophia Kingshill’s complex cultural history includes sirens, selkies and some freakshow mermaid lookalikes

11 July 2015

9:00 AM

11 July 2015

9:00 AM

Mermaids Sophia Kingshill

Little Toller Books, pp.152, £15, ISBN: 9781908213266

The first mermaid we meet in this intriguing, gorgeously produced book is spray-painted in scarlet on a wall in Madrid, holding a heart not a mirror. Not your average mermaid, then; but as the folklorist and playwright Sophia Kingshill delves further into their complex cultural history, it becomes clear there’s no such thing.

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