Tragedy, trauma and the healing touch: A French visual artist’s poetic tribute to child survivors of 2004 tsunami

French artist Veronik Menanteau's 'Tsunami Poems' honors child survivors of the 2004 tsunami through poetry and art.

In her first intentful switch from prose to poetry, French visual artist and author Veronik Menanteau channels her experience, both as witness to the nightmare scenario of the tsunami of 2004, and as volunteer in the extensive relief and rehabilitation effort in Nagapattinam, into a collection of verse.

‘Tsunami Poems’ (Red River 2026), with its frontal blurb setting out the literary leitmotif of a dedication to the memories of the 2004 Indian earthquake and tsunami and its aftermath presents a “a poignant, and inspiring, tribute to the memory of the 27,000 men, women and children, who were the victims of the Tsunami in Tamil Nadu”.

The collection of verse, illustrated with the art works of the child survivors, is as much a tribute to their amazing spirit of resilience.

At a recent book launch hosted by The Brown Critique and People for Pondicherry’s Heritage, Gayatri Majumdar, poet, asked the author the obvious first question. Why a tribute two decades since the tragedy?

“Whenever I looked at the paintings by the children all these years I was amazed by their capacity to tap deep into the core of their emotional suffering and express themselves. I knew that very deeply that something would come out... when the moment was right”, she responded.

“I needed to go to the quintessence of the experience and transcend it to formulate an artistic proposition.”