“Evoking Ursula LeGuin’s unflinching humane and moral authority, Nina Munteanu takes us into the lives of four generations of women and their battles against a global giant that controls and manipulates Earth’s water…In language both gritty and hauntingly poetic, Munteanu delivers an uncompromising warning of our future.”—Lynn Hutchinson Lee, Toronto playwright
Dragonfly.eco calls the book "an insightful novel...a cautionary tale rummaging through the forgotten drawers of time in the lives of four generations...This whirling, holistic, and evolving novel comes alive, like we imagine water does."
The novel received a five-star review in Foreword Clarion Review and Kirkus Reviews writes: "Munteanu transmutes a harrowing dystopia into a transcendentalist origin myth. A sobering and original cautionary tale that combines a family drama with an environmental treatise."
Part of the story is
told through the diary of a limnologist (someone who studies freshwater) who
witnesses and suffers through severe water taxes and imposed restrictions, dark
intrigue through neighbourhood water betrayals, corporate spying and espionage,
and repression of her scientific freedoms. Some people die. Others disappear…
Here's an excerpt from the interview:
What is “A Diary in the Age of Water” about?
The book is essentially a journey of four generations of women who have a unique
relationship with water, through a time of extreme change through climate change
and water shortage. The book spans over forty years (from the 2020s to the
2060s) and into the far future, mostly through the diary of a limnologist, which
is found by a future water-being. During the diarist’s lifetime, all things to
do with water are overseen and controlled by the international giant water
utility CanadaCorp—with powers to arrest and detain anyone. This is a world in
which China owns America and America, in turn, owns Canada.
You mention the” Age of Water” in your book. Are there other ages/epochs?
Yes. The story begins in the far future with young Kyo during the Age of Trees,
after the end of the Age of Water. It is, in fact, the end of that age as well
and that is why she prepares for the Exodus to “humanity’s” new home.
What inspired you to write this book?
My publisher in Rome (Mincione Edizioni) had asked me for a short story
on water and politics. I wanted to write about Canada and I wanted something
ironic… so I chose water scarcity in Canada, a nation rich in water. The
bilingual story “The Way of Water” (“La natura dell’acqua”) resulted, which has
been reprinted in several magazines and anthologies, including Cli-Fi: Canadian
Tales of Climate Change (Exile Editions), Future Fiction: New Dimensions in
International Science Fiction (Future Fiction/Rosarium Publishing), Little Blue
Marble Magazine, and Climate Crisis Anthology (Little Blue Marble). The story
was about young Hilde—the daughter of the diarist (of the novel). Hilde was
dying of thirst in Toronto and the story begged for more … so the novel came
from it…
Why did you choose to write your novel as a diary?
I was writing about both the far and the near future and much of it was
based—like Margaret Atwood and her books—on real events and even real people. I
wanted personal relevance to what was going on, particularly with climate
change. I also wanted to achieve a gritty realism of “the mundane” and a diary
felt right. Lynna—the diarist—is also a reclusive inexpressive character, so I
thought a personal diary would help bring out her thoughts and feelings more.
There’s nothing like eves-dropping to make the mundane exciting. The
diary-aspect of the book characterizes it as “mundane science fiction” by
presenting an “ordinary” setting for characters to play out. The tension arises
more from insidious cumulative events and circumstances that slowly grow into
something incendiary.
Your book has been described by various reviewers and literary types as being
anything from literary fiction and FemLit to science fiction, Cli-Fi and
eco-fiction How would you describe it?
It’s really all these things. The story carries the personal journeys of four
strong and complex women characters. It gives them much agency in dealing with
the climate and water crisis—socially, politically, and environmentally. One is
a political activist, another a wary scientist, and another an anarchist.
However, while A Diary in the Age of Water showcases strong women characters,
its main climate and environmental theme carries the story through the four
generations to its climax. In the end, the book’s classification will depend on
the reader, who will decide which aspect of the novel resonates the most with
them. The main protagonist in “A Diary in the Age of Water” is a limnologist
(someone who studies freshwater); so are you. Is there any resemblance? Both
Lynna and I chose to study water through the discipline of limnology; Lynna did
most of her work on Canadian glaciers, while my focus was on small streams in
southern Quebec. We also share similar views on the environment and humanity’s
place in it. I might even have some of her character foibles … hopefully not ALL
of them. However, how she chose to live that worldview—cloistered, repressed,
and fearful—is not me at all. I tend to bluster, confront, and generally get
into trouble. In that way, I might more resemble Lynna’s daughter. Having said
that, I’d say that all good characters have a piece of the writer in them. Some
dark and some light. How can they not? In this case, the resemblance with the
diarist is heightened because she is depicted through her diary, which adds a
gritty realism and a highly personal aspect to the first person fiction. There’s
a piece of me in each of the four women depicted in the story.
You mentioned that each of the four generations of women have a singular
relationship with water. What role does water play in the book?
Well, in some important way, water is the fifth character. You could say even
the main character. Water is the theme that carries each woman on her personal
journey with climate change and the devastation that occurs—through water, I
might add. Climate change is a water phenomenon, after all… So, water—like place
and setting—plays a subtle yet powerful role in the story, influencing each
character in her own way and bringing them together in the overall journey of
humanity during a time of great and catastrophic change.
The diary spans a twenty-year period in the mid-twenty-first century and
describes a Canada in the grips of severe water scarcity. Tell us about
that—how does a water-rich country like Canada suffer severe water
scarcity?
Ecologists and economists alike (who truly understand water and its global
distribution and movement) will tell you that there is, in fact enough water on
the planet; scarcity results from its unequal distribution, pollution and toxic
input, squandering, diversion, and manipulation (one example being making rain
and instructing it to fall here rather than there). Maude Barlow (Chairperson of
the Council of Canadians) will tell you that Canada is currently at risk of
giving away much of its water. Foreign companies are now mining Canada’s
watersheds with impunity and at minimal cost. Under my premise, United States
(and China) aggressively mines Canada’s groundwater, glaciers, rain and surface
water through massive diversion projects to rehydrate the dwindling aquifers of
the United States. My premise is based on real events currently ongoing
throughout the world. China leads the world in rainmaking and manipulation.
Egypt plans to pump water from Lake Nassar into the Sahara as tensions between
Egypt, and nine upstream countries for control of water in the Nile watershed
increase from dams the Sudanese and Ethiopians build and as Tanzania pumps water
from Lake Victoria, and Kenya diverts lakes feeding Lake Victoria to its arid
eastern regions. India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and China are in conflict over
control of rivers such as the Indus, Ganges, and particularly the Brahmaputra.
India’s River Link Plan impacts Bangladesh. As Pakistan, Kashmir and India fight
over more and more water, the Indus dries up and no longer flows into the ocean.
Meantime, Russian scientists are reviving a 1930s Soviet plan to reverse some of
Siberia's largest rivers to the parched former Soviet republics of central Asia
with plans to replenish the Aral Sea. This is something very similar to the
USA’s 1960 plan to divert Canada’s northward waterways south to rehydrate
America’s drying midwest. Massive water diversion is also being debated within a
single country; Spain’s water-rich northern region has fallen under pressure by
Spain’s water-poor southern region, provoking the controversial Ebro diversion
project. Norwegian university professor Terje Tvedt aptly concludes: “At the
heart of these gigantic enterprises lies one of history’s great paradoxes: the
more humans try to tame and regulate water by means of large-scale elaborate
projects, the more water will, in turn, control society.” Back to Canada and my
not so outlandish premise: by the 2040s, Canadians are indentured to US needs
through massive diversions and resulting water-use restrictions. One example,
taken from precedent set in states like Colorado, is an imposed ruling by
CanadaCorp that Canadians cannot collect rainwater. Something several states
have already implemented.
The novel mentions a huge water diversion plan called NAWAPA. Can you tell us
about that?
The original NAWAPA (North America Water Power Alliance) Plan was drawn up by
the Pasadena-based firm of Ralph M. Parsons Co. in 1964, and had a favorable
review by Congress for completion in the 1990s. The plan—thankfully never
completed—was drafted by the US Army Corps of Engineers and entailed the
southward diversion of a portion (if not all) of the Mackenzie and Yukon rivers
in northern Canada and Alaska, now flowing into the Arctic Ocean as well as the
Peace, Liard and other rivers flowing into the Pacific by creating massive dams
in the north. This would cause the rivers to flow backwards into the mountains
to form vast reservoirs that would flood one-tenth of British Columbia. The
water would be channeled south through the 800-km Rocky Mountain Trench
Reservoir into the Northern USA, and from there along various routes into the
dry regions of the South, to California and reaching as far as Mexico.
Very intriguing. Where can readers purchase the book?
They can buy the book in most quality bookstores such as Chapters-Indigo, Barnes
& Noble, and Amazon. They can also purchase the book through the publisher,
Inanna Publications.
Best of luck, Nina, on this book!
Thanks, Simon!
Nina Munteanu is a Canadian ecologist / limnologist and novelist. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Nina’s bilingual “La natura dell’acqua / The Way of Water” was published by Mincione Edizioni in Rome. Her non-fiction book “Water Is…” was selected by Margaret Atwood in the New York Times ‘Year in Reading’ and was chosen as the 2017 Summer Read by Water Canada. Her novel “A Diary in the Age of Water” was released by Inanna Publications in 2020. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books.
