Natasha Carthew in conversation
Saturday 24 October, 2pm at the Poly
Who gets to tell the story of Cornwall? For Natasha Carthew, the answer begins with the people who live here year-round, far from the version of the county sold to visitors.
In her Nero-shortlisted memoir Undercurrent, Natasha wrote with extraordinary candour about growing up working class in rural Cornwall, where council estates sit alongside second homes and spectacular landscapes coexist with poverty, insecurity and limited opportunity. It is also a story about family, nature, ambition, escape and the complicated pull of home.
Her new book, Rough Edges, takes that story beyond Cornwall, travelling around Britain’s coastline and meeting people whose communities face many of the same pressures. Natasha joins us to talk about class, place and belonging, about leaving and returning, and about what it means to write Cornwall from the inside.
About Natasha Carthew
Author of Rough Edges
Natasha Carthew is a working-class writer and poet from rural Cornwall whose work explores poverty, place and the lives too often hidden behind the postcard image of the Cornish coast. Founder of the Working Class Writers Festival, she has campaigned widely for greater representation of working-class voices. Her Nero-shortlisted memoir Undercurrent explored rural poverty in Cornwall; her new book Rough Edges turns its attention to Britain’s coastline and what she calls its “salt belt of deprivation”, revealing communities shaped by low wages, insecure housing, seasonal work and the pressures of tourism and second homes.
