Like many diasporic people of colour, Claire Ratinon 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.

But a chance encounter with a rooftop farm was the start of a journey that caused her to rethink the life she’d been creating and her beliefs about who she ought to be. Enlivened, she turned her hand to growing food in London before finding herself yearning for a small parcel of land to call her own.

Unearthed tells the story of her leaving the city for the English countryside – and her first garden – in the hope of forging a pathway towards the embrace of the natural world and a sense of belonging cultivated on her own terms.

‘Ratinon’s story will change hearts and minds’ Alice Vincent

‘A beautiful book about nature…I recommend it’ Afua Hirsch, author of Brit(ish)

A powerful work of memoir and storytelling that will change the way we think about the natural world.

Unearthed is the story of how 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.

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.