UNDERCURRENT: A Cornish Memoir of Poverty, Nature and Resilience

Natasha Carthew grew up in rural poverty in Cornwall, battling limited opportunities, precarious resources, escalating property prices, isolation and a community marked by the ravages of inequality. Her world existed alongside the postcard picture Cornwall, where wealth and privilege converged on sandy beaches and expensive second homes.

In the rockpools and hedgerows of the natural world, Natasha found solace in the beauty of the landscape, and in the mobile library she found her means of escape. In her first non-fiction book she returns to 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.

UNDERCURRENT is part-memoir, part-investigation, part love-letter to Cornwall. It is a vivid, powerful exploration of rural poverty, and the often devastating impact of living without the means or support to build a future. This is a journey through place, and a story of hope, beauty, and fierce resilience.

Natasha Carthew is a Cornish working class writer and poet. She is the author of nine books. Her latest book, BORN BETWEEN CROSSES, is a sequence of prose-poetry (Hypatia Publications, 2021), and she contributed to HAG: Forgotten Folk Tales (Virago Press, 2020) and WOMEN ON NATURE (Unbound, 2021). Natasha has written extensively on nature and socio-economics, and frequently discusses how authentic rural working class writing is represented. Her writing has appeared in publications including The Guardian, The Big Issue and The Economist, and she has appeared on BBC Radio 3 and Radio 4. Natasha is the founder of the Nature Writing Prize for Working Class Writers, and Artistic Director of the Working Class Writers Festival, in partnership with Bristol Ideas.