'Unearthed' by Claire Ratinon is a brilliant work of memoir and nature writing which is beautifully written and highly perceptive. Ratinon originally worked as a documentary-maker before becoming interested in gardening and food growing, initially in New York and then in London. 'Unearthed' recounts her first year living and gardening in a Sussex village, with frequent glimpses back to her own upbringing, her parents and her Mauritian heritage.

A blend of memoir, growing food and meditations on race, set to the backdrop of the author's move from London to the countryside. I enjoyed the sections where the author describes growing vegetables from Mauritius but some of the other parts felt a bit laboured/overly long.

3.5 stars.
Unearthed is part memoir, part investigation, based on author Claire Ratinon’s life, identity and Mauritian heritage.
Claire interlaces this theme with her love of gardening, and we join her in a journey which began with a garden on the top of a New York building. Roots play an important part both with family and the plants that she tends.

There’s much to consider and Claire provided some dark history lessons about the exploitation of Mauritius and the people who once called it home; slavery was rife. It makes for sobering reading as do her thoughts about where we are in the world with inequality and prejudice.

My favourite parts of the book were learning about some of the foods that grow in Mauritius and how the author was successful in growing them in her English garden. I also enjoyed the simple almost lyrical descriptions of nature and how the author nurtured her plants.

I liked this but didn’t love it. It’s fantastic to get a new perspective on nature writing, and I think the connections between race/identity and nature is a fantastic topic to explore, but I’m not sure if Ratinon is adept at doing that as I would like her to be.

I love a nature based memoir, I’ve read a small handful at this point and I think, aside from Amy Liptrot’s writing, they all have a density within the words (topic aside). I felt that weight whilst reading Unearthed and Alice Vincent’s Rootbound, they clearly have the urge to back their points with fact, but at certain points it felt overwrought. As with Vincent’s Rootbound, Ratinon’s writing doesn’t have levity or ease when it comes to the ‘non-memoir’ parts of the book - it lacked balance.

The parts around Ratinon’s own life and family are a lovely and relatable read, both the parts where she builds her own relationship with nature and explores her experiences with race - growing up, life in her small village and in particular how her own heritage links her to nature. This really is where Ratinon’s writing shone, I especially enjoyed hearing the stories of her Mauritian family through nature and her own (at times) separation from that culture.

I think this would have functioned better as an exploration of race/identity, solely through Ratinon’s experiences- that is just as valid an exploration, without the need to define and explore specific ideologies.

This is an absolutely glorious book! A beautifully told story about finding belonging in the natural world and growing roots. This is the nature memoir we all need, truly marvellous!

'Unearthed' by Claire Ratinon is a brilliant work of memoir and nature writing which is beautifully written and highly perceptive. Ratinon originally worked as a documentary-maker before becoming interested in gardening and food growing, initially in New York and then in London. 'Unearthed' recounts her first year living and gardening in a Sussex village, with frequent glimpses back to her own upbringing, her parents and her Mauritian heritage.

Ratinon is fiercely engaged with questions of structural inequality and powerfully explores the way in which debates around nature and the environment can intersect with racism, from the disturbing rhetoric of ecofascism to the conflation of the terms 'non-native' and 'invasive' to describe plant species. She also discusses how people of colour are under-presented in nature writing and are more generally often seen not to belong in green spaces, as was shockingly demonstrated in the Central Park birdwatching incident which took place on the same day as the murder of George Floyd. Ratinon connects these ideas to hers and her family's experiences of racism and to the white supremacist ideals underpinning the colonial history of Mauritius which persist into this century.

Many sections of this book therefore make for challenging reading, but this is also a book full of hope and healing as Ratinon writes about the joy that can be found in plants and growing. I was particularly moved by her efforts to grow Mauritian plants as a tribute to her parents and a way of connecting with and reclaiming her heritage. Overall, I found this a very illuminating and important book. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for sending me an ARC to review.