UPROOTING
"Uprooting is at once tender and direct - as lyrical in its descriptions of home landscapes as it is scathing on the still-living legacies of colonisation. Farrell has given us a profoundly honest portrait of plants, place and the shifting of spirit wrought by migration" -- JESSICA J LEE
What is home?
It's a question that has troubled Marchelle Farrell for her entire life. A longed-for career in psychiatry saw her leave behind the pristine beaches and emerald hills of Trinidad. Until, disillusioned, she uprooted again, this time for the peaceful English countryside.
The only Black woman in her village, Marchelle hopes to grow a new life. But when a worldwide pandemic and a global racial reckoning collide, the upheaval of colonialism that has led her to this place begins to be unearthed. Is this really home? And can she ever feel truly grounded here?
Drawn to her new garden, Marchelle begins to examine this complex and emotional question through the psychotherapeutic lens of her work. As her relationship with the garden deepens, she discovers that her two conflicting identities are far more intertwined than she had realised.
Full of hope and healing, Uprooting is a book about finding home where we least expect it, and which invites us to reconnect to the land – and ourselves.
Uprooting won the 2021 Nan Shepherd Prize for Nature Writing and was shortlisted for the 2024 Wainwright Prize for Nature Writing.
It's a question that has troubled Marchelle Farrell for her entire life. A longed-for career in psychiatry saw her leave behind the pristine beaches and emerald hills of Trinidad. Until, disillusioned, she uprooted again, this time for the peaceful English countryside.
The only Black woman in her village, Marchelle hopes to grow a new life. But when a worldwide pandemic and a global racial reckoning collide, the upheaval of colonialism that has led her to this place begins to be unearthed. Is this really home? And can she ever feel truly grounded here?
Drawn to her new garden, Marchelle begins to examine this complex and emotional question through the psychotherapeutic lens of her work. As her relationship with the garden deepens, she discovers that her two conflicting identities are far more intertwined than she had realised.
Full of hope and healing, Uprooting is a book about finding home where we least expect it, and which invites us to reconnect to the land – and ourselves.
Uprooting won the 2021 Nan Shepherd Prize for Nature Writing and was shortlisted for the 2024 Wainwright Prize for Nature Writing.
BY THE RIVER
Twelve writers consider the subject of rivers and how they shape us throughout our lives, demarcating cities as well as moulding our creative consciousness. Tessa Hadley revisits Rumer Godden’s The River; Jo Hamya pays homage to Virginia Woolf; Michael Malay goes nightfishing for eels by the river Severn; and Marchelle Farrell revisits the tropical waterfalls of her childhood home in Trinidad.
Tender and astute, By the River explores the cultural, social and psychological significance of the rivers that run through our societies and our minds, bringing together these twelve contemporary writers in a celebration of water and its transformative qualities.
CONTRIBUTORS: Niellah Arboine | Amy-Jane Beer | Roger Deakin | Marchelle Farrell | Tessa Hadley | Jo Hamya | Amy Key | Rebecca May Johnson | Michael Malay | Jamal Mahjoub | Caleb Azumah Nelson | Ellena Savage
By The River is published by Daunt Books and available now.
Tender and astute, By the River explores the cultural, social and psychological significance of the rivers that run through our societies and our minds, bringing together these twelve contemporary writers in a celebration of water and its transformative qualities.
CONTRIBUTORS: Niellah Arboine | Amy-Jane Beer | Roger Deakin | Marchelle Farrell | Tessa Hadley | Jo Hamya | Amy Key | Rebecca May Johnson | Michael Malay | Jamal Mahjoub | Caleb Azumah Nelson | Ellena Savage
By The River is published by Daunt Books and available now.
THIS ALLOTMENT
This Allotment brings together thirteen brilliant contemporary writers in a glorious celebration of these entirely unique spaces: plots that mean so much more than the soil upon which they sit.
An allotment. A health-giving, heart-filling miniature kingdom of carrots, courgettes and callaloo. A microcosm for our societies at large as people claim their ‘patch’ and guard it protectively, but also of welcoming arms, gifted gluts and new recipes from overseas.
They are places of blowsy dahlias, cricket on the radio and cups of tea in tumbledown sheds; they are buzzing bees and the wisdom of weeds and seeds; they are resilience, resistance and freedom with a radical history and future. All life is here is this collection of vibrant original pieces on growing, eating and nurturing.
CONTRIBUTORS: Jenny Chamarette * Rob Cowen * Marchelle Farrell * Olia Hercules * David Keenan & Heather Leigh * Kirsteen McNish * JC Niala * Graeme Rigby * Rebecca Schiller * Sui Searle * Sara Venn * Alice Vincent
An allotment. A health-giving, heart-filling miniature kingdom of carrots, courgettes and callaloo. A microcosm for our societies at large as people claim their ‘patch’ and guard it protectively, but also of welcoming arms, gifted gluts and new recipes from overseas.
They are places of blowsy dahlias, cricket on the radio and cups of tea in tumbledown sheds; they are buzzing bees and the wisdom of weeds and seeds; they are resilience, resistance and freedom with a radical history and future. All life is here is this collection of vibrant original pieces on growing, eating and nurturing.
CONTRIBUTORS: Jenny Chamarette * Rob Cowen * Marchelle Farrell * Olia Hercules * David Keenan & Heather Leigh * Kirsteen McNish * JC Niala * Graeme Rigby * Rebecca Schiller * Sui Searle * Sara Venn * Alice Vincent