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#129 Louise O'Neill: A Feminist Reimagining Of The Little Mermaid

Ctrl Alt Delete

emma gannon

Authors, Wellbeing, Arts, Books, Social Media, Creativity

4.61.1K Ratings

🗓️ 13 May 2018

⏱️ 47 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

​This episode is with Louise O'Neill, the award-winning Irish novelist. Louise has written a​ feminist retelling of The Little Mermaid​ which has ​just been​ published by Scholastic​. ​A spokesperson for ​the​ publisher said ofThe Surface Breaks: “Christian Andersen’s dark, original fairy tale is reimagined through a searing feminist lens, with the stunning, scalpel-sharp writing that has won Louise her legions of devoted fans.”​ In the Disney version of The Little Mermaid, Ariel changes her body to please a man, is at the beck and call of her father and she even has her voice taken away from her. I got to interview Louise O'Neill at Waterstones Piccadilly in May (2018) about the book as part of a live podcast recording. We discussed feminism, writing fantasy literature, her inspirations ​and why Mermaids are back on trend again.


​"It's funny once you become a feminist you can't enjoy any pop culture, everything is fucking ruined"."


On her main character Gaia: "I just wanted to see her as a girl who wanted to take up more space in the world."



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Transcript

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0:00.0

This episode of Control-Or Delete is sponsored by King Fisher, the company behind

0:05.0

recognizable home improvement brands such as B&Q and Screw Fix, who help make better homes

0:10.4

accessible for everyone. And who, by the way, doesn't love a pop down to be in queue? I definitely do.

0:16.0

Kingfisher have recently partnered with Google Cloud, a collaboration that together will support and prepare for retail's next digital age.

0:24.3

From infrastructure to data analytics, they are looking for the right people to help them succeed,

0:29.8

and that could be you.

0:31.2

They're looking for tech professionals interested in software engineering, data

0:35.0

analytics, data science, e-commerce and much more. They also have a range of brilliant benefits,

0:41.0

competitive salaries, private health care for the family, and an outstanding pension scheme.

0:46.0

So if you're interested, go to careers. Kingfisher.com today to find out more about their tech and digital roles. Thank you so much to King Fisher

0:55.3

for sponsoring this podcast.

0:56.7

Hello and welcome back to another episode of Control-Alt Delete. Today's guest is the amazing

1:02.1

award-winning Irish author Louise O'Neill.

1:05.0

Louise actually came on Control-Or delete right at the beginning when I first launched this podcast

1:09.0

so I'm so excited to have her as a returning guest.

1:12.0

Louise has written a feminist retelling of the little bit of her story. excited to have her as a returning guest.

1:12.8

Louise has written a feminist retelling of the Little Mermaid most recently,

1:16.5

and it's been published by Scholastic.

1:18.8

A spokesperson for the publisher describes the surface breaks

1:22.0

as Hans Christian Anderson's dark original fairy tale is reimagined through a searing feminist lens with the stunning scalpel sharp writing that is Juan Louise her legions of devoted fans.

1:35.0

As you probably know if you watch the Disney version of the Little Mermaid,

1:39.0

Ariel changes her body to please a man.

...

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