Rosewater

Liv Little founded the pioneering media company gal-dem, an online and print platform for women and non-binary people of colour that announced its closure last month. Her debut novel, Rosewater, derives from the same ambitions, following 28-year-old queer poet Elsie, who is living in south London and navigating her chaotic work, love and family life.The book opens with a literal bang, as bailiffs attempt to evict Elsie from her social housing flat. It’s a powerfully visceral and exposing moment. “I’m left with sixty…

Where is home? Do we ever really know where we belong? These are the questions that drive gal-dem founder Liv Little’s debut novel, Rosewater. At its centre is Elsie Macintosh, a gay 28-year-old poet of black Guyanese descent who left her parents’ house in Bristol after she tired of minding her twin brothers and settled down by herself in south London. The book opens on the morning Elsie is evicted from her flat.It’s a pleasure, too, to read the refreshingly original sex scenes that Little grounds in play, consent and…