Undercurrent: shortlisted for the Nero Book Awards 2023 (Paperback) - Natasha Carthew

Shortlisted for the Nero Book Awards 2023, Undercurrent is a vivid, lyrical and powerful exploration of rural poverty, and the often devastating impact of living without the means or support to build a future

*SHORTLISTED FOR THE NERO BOOK AWARDS 2023*

'A powerful story of social inequality' RAYNOR WINN

To grow up in rural poverty is to fight for life before you can walk. Natasha Carthew was born into a world that sat alongside picture-postcard Cornwall - one where second homes took the sea view of council properties, summer months shifted the course of people's lives, and wealth converged with poverty on sandy beaches.

In the rockpools and hedgerows of the natural world, Natasha found solace in the wild landscape, and a means of escape in her mobile library. In Undercurrent she retraces the cliff paths of her childhood, determined to make sense of an upbringing shaped by political neglect and a life defined by the beauty of nature.
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'A story of queer resistance, of community and of finding your own voice' DAMIAN BARR
'By turns marvellous, moving and mesmerising' ANITA SETHI
'A proud, defiant account' CAUGHT BY THE RIVER
'Haunting and powerful' KATE MOSSE
'Fierce and honest . . . reveals the precarious nature of working-class life' BBC COUNTRYFILE MAGAZINE

About the Author

Natasha Carthew is a working-class writer and poet from Cornwall where she lives with her girlfriend. She is the author of eight books and is the Founder and Artistic Director of The Working Class Writers Festival. Natasha is well known for writing on socioeconomic issues and has written extensively on the subject of how authentic rural working-class voices are represented in fiction for several publications and programmes; including ITV, the Writers' & Artists' Yearbook, The Royal Society of Authors Journal, BBC Radio 3, BBC Radio 4, the Guardian, the Dark Mountain Project, The Bookseller, Book Brunch, the Big Issue, Mslexia, The Booker Foundation and The Economist.