OCEANOGRAPHIC (OM): WHEN DID YOU FIRST CONNECT WITH THE OCEAN? HOW DID YOUR PASSION WITH THE MARINE WORLD DEVELOP?

PIER NIRANDARA: “I was incredibly fortunate to grow up around the ocean in Thailand – it was a beautiful place to spend my childhood. I have this vivid memory of my mom doing a Discover Scuba Dive and being too young to join her. So, I waited impatiently on the beach, and she came out of the water saying, ‘That was the most incredible experience I’ve ever had in my life!’ I had never felt that level of jealousy before. From that day on, I vowed to get underwater.”

OM: AT THE AGE OF 15, YOU WROTE A BESTSELLING INTERSPECIES TRILOGY WITH THE FIRST BOOK, THE MERMAID APPRENTICES, WHICH GAVE YOU THE TITLE OF THAILAND’S YOUNGEST ENGLISH WRITING AUTHOR. HOW DID YOU GET THE IDEA FOR THE BOOK?

PIER NIRANDARA: “The Interspecies Trilogy is set in a parallel universe inhabited by mythical creatures, and is about two teenagers who get chosen to become ambassadors between the merfolk and the human race. In essence, it’s an allegory for international relations and xenophobia – a reflection of current issues going on in the world, probably inspired by my time doing Model UN as a kid. Of course, being 15 years old at the time, I didn’t really recognise the global implications back then. I grew up in Bangkok and the city is not really a place that you can just walk down the street and see your friends down the road. I was alone with my books and my imagination for a lot of time. You know that feeling that you get when you read something so incredible, it really speaks to you, and it transports you into another world? I really wanted to give that feeling to someone else as well. At that time there were no books about mermaids, let alone any written by Thai kids, so I thought, ‘Why not?’”

OM: AND IT CERTAINLY WAS A HUGE SUCCESS! HOW HAVE THESE BOOKS SHAPED YOUR LIFE AND YOUR CAREER UP UNTIL TODAY?

PIER NIRANDARA: “Being an author was my first real job, and looking back, I was incredibly lucky. The books were written in English because even though I’m fluent in Thai – I can read and write – I wasn’t particularly great at writing literary Thai. We wound up landing the translator for the Harry Potter series – which was huge in of itself, and kind catapulted me into the space as a storyteller. I spent my high school years touring other schools, speaking at events, discussing the importance of storytelling. I think it was really this love for stories that’s permeated my entire life. It’s about evoking emotion and hopefully using that to catalyse some kind of change.”

OM: HOW HAS YOUR CHILDHOOD IN BANGKOK INFLUENCED YOUR CAREER AND YOUR WRITING?

PIER NIRANDARA: “It definitely made me a very curious person. Bangkok is a huge metropolis where people of all walks of life filter through, sometimes as a destination, often on journeys to elsewhere. I also went to an international school – which exposed me to different nationalities and ways of life growing up. Many of us call ourselves third culture kids, where we grew up in cultures different to our parents. It really opened up the world in terms of exposing me to what was out there, and informed who I am today.”

OM: GROWING UP IN THAILAND, WHAT CONSERVATION CONCERNS HAVE YOU WITNESSED?

PIER NIRANDARA: “There are massive conservation issues in the region – from plastic pollution to coral bleaching, poaching and Indigenous rights. The longer I’ve spent away from Thailand, the more I’m actually feeling drawn back to it. I think sometimes it takes leaving your home for you to see it with different eyes and from a different perspective. I’d love to tell more stories about Thai coastal communities, and our relationship to the water. A couple years ago, I tried to become the first Thai person to photograph one of Thailand’s elusive dugongs – a species that is going extinct – underwater. We only got drone shots back then so that’s still a project I would like to go back and complete. Another story I want to explore is the shark fin trade – but from a Thai-Chinese perspective. Historically, the narrative has largely been told from a Western, Euro-centric perspective. Think people from the global north saying, ‘don’t eat shark fin soup, it’s bad.’ But what about the perspectives of the people that grew up eating it, consuming it, and selling it? What are their stories? How do we understand where they’re coming from so that we can see a way forward and through? There’s so much Sinophobia and anti-Asian sentiment in conservation, it’s an area I’m very passionate about exploring.”