Unearthed - BookWyrm

304 pages

English language

Published June 13, 2023 by Penguin Random House, Vintage.

ISBN:: 978-1-5291-1486-7

Unearthed is the story of how, after years of a troubled relationship with the land of her birth, Claire Ratinon found belonging through falling in love with growing plants and reconnecting with nature.

Like many diasporic people of colour, Claire grew up feeling cut off from the natural world. She lived in cities, reluctant to be outdoors and stuck with the belief that success and status could fill the space where belonging was absent. Through learning the practice of growing food, she unpicked her beliefs about who she ought to be. Over her first year living in the English countryside and with the first vegetable patch of her own, she finds a pathway back to nature's embrace. And through growing the food of Mauritius, recording her parents' stories and exploring the history of the island, she also strengthens her connection to her homeland.

A beautiful work of nature-writing, …

Unearthed is the story of how, after years of a troubled relationship with the land of her birth, Claire Ratinon found belonging through falling in love with growing plants and reconnecting with nature.

Like many diasporic people of colour, Claire grew up feeling cut off from the natural world. She lived in cities, reluctant to be outdoors and stuck with the belief that success and status could fill the space where belonging was absent. Through learning the practice of growing food, she unpicked her beliefs about who she ought to be. Over her first year living in the English countryside and with the first vegetable patch of her own, she finds a pathway back to nature's embrace. And through growing the food of Mauritius, recording her parents' stories and exploring the history of the island, she also strengthens her connection to her homeland.

A beautiful work of nature-writing, memoir and storytelling, Unearthed urges us to look to the world outside for the belonging and home we seek. It is a heartfelt call to reconsider our history, the way we think about nature and the complex relationships we all have with the land.

3 editions

Stephanie Jane reviewed Unearthed by Claire Ratinon

A beautifully written memoir

5 stars

Unearthed is a tremendously powerful read about how essential our sense of belonging is to our overall wellbeing. For Claire Ratinon, a black woman born in England of Mauritian parents whose ancestry prior to living on that island was not recorded by the colonists who imported slave labour for their plantations, 'belonging' was an abstract concept. However through the fortuitous chance visit to a New York rooftop vegetable garden, Ratinon discovered what would come eventually to be her raison d'etre.

I recognised the Sussex area in which Ratinon and her partner, Sam, made their rural home as I lived not so far away myself for a decade. I could imagine all too well the mix of reactions her presence there would have provoked and, for all those who think racism in this country is just practiced by an obsolete minority these days, this memoir is a strong testament to …

Unearthed is a tremendously powerful read about how essential our sense of belonging is to our overall wellbeing. For Claire Ratinon, a black woman born in England of Mauritian parents whose ancestry prior to living on that island was not recorded by the colonists who imported slave labour for their plantations, 'belonging' was an abstract concept. However through the fortuitous chance visit to a New York rooftop vegetable garden, Ratinon discovered what would come eventually to be her raison d'etre.

I recognised the Sussex area in which Ratinon and her partner, Sam, made their rural home as I lived not so far away myself for a decade. I could imagine all too well the mix of reactions her presence there would have provoked and, for all those who think racism in this country is just practiced by an obsolete minority these days, this memoir is a strong testament to the contrary. It may be much less overt than in previous decades, but England is still not a welcoming place for many.

What shines through Unearthed for me though was how the rituals and skilled monotony of vegetable growing made such a difference to Ratinon's mental health as her memoir progressed. Through her eyes and words I came to understand the importance of growing food in a way that results in the best produce possible - not the cheapest or the fastest - and, alongside her, I also wondered why this vital role in our society has become so denigrated. I remembered the stark images of unpicked fields of crops after Brexit sent the European workers home, English workers not wanting such hard work for the pittance they would earn nor any longer having the skills required. How have we come to place such little value on a job as essential as growing our food? Like with my own foraging, I recognised Ratinon's vegetable growing as something of a rebellious act!

Another aspect which particularly spoke to me was Ratinon's thoughts around the ecology and rewilding movements as she questions their language and ideas around which plants 'deserve' to be saved. While I support the rewilding idea in general, I had not given its specifics that much thought. Ratinon asks how we differentiate between native and non-native. I wondered how a benchmark was chosen, remembering an archaeological article I read some time ago which identified the early existence of rhododendrons in Britain. Their extinction prior to widespread botanical cataloguing means they are now seen as non-native, but is that actually their truth?

Unearthed is a beautifully written memoir which deserves to be widely read and, I hope, will inspire many conversations about the important issues it raises. I would highly recommend it to readers who enjoyed books such as We Need New Stories by Nesrine Malik and Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer.