We’re thrilled to be welcoming Natasha Carthew to Manchester to discuss her stunning new memoir UNDERCURRENT.

Full of hope, beauty and fierce resilience, it’s a vivid and powerful exploration of rural poverty, and the often devastating impact of living without the means or support to build a future. Natasha will be in conversation with Terri White.

About the book:

There’s a Cornish saying that nothing is left behind in an autumnal tide, the powerful tug between the sun and the equator makes the water surface stronger, and it pulls and builds until we are left with what is known as great tides – but as I stand here on my childhood beach someplace in my 40s, all I can see is the stretch of grey rocks and sand where the ebb has come and gone.

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 picture postcard 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.

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.

Doors: 18.30, event starts: 18.45

Tickets are £3.00 or free when pre-ordering a copy of the book. UNDERCURRENT will also be available to purchase on the night and Natasha will be signing copies after the talk. If you would like a signed copy but cannot make the event, please contact us on 0161 274 3331 or manchester@blackwell.co.uk and we can arrange this for you.