Shayla is on a newspaper assignment when she returns to the public housing estate where she grew up and finds it demolished. The locals have been evicted, their homes erased, their stories too. Standing among the rubble of Rosemeadow, Shayla is assailed by her memories of living there. The bad secret Daddy asked her to keep. Mummy rekindling a dangerous romance. Making friends with ‘the gutter kids’.
Roseghetto is an unforgettable and moving coming-of-age story, an account of breaking the cycle of violence and poverty.
About the author:
Kirsty Jagger is a journalist by trade. In 2019, she won the inaugural Heyman Mentorship Award, established by acclaimed Australian author Kathryn Heyman for a writer from a background of social or economic disadvantage. Roseghetto takes some inspiration from growing up in the housing commission estates of Sydney’s western suburbs. This is her first novel.
Reproduced by permission of UQP
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