Root and Branch

Winner of the 2023 Victorian Premier’s Prize for Non-fiction

Essays on Inheritance

I have come to see that I am an argumentative person who is frequently convinced that my angle, my take, on a matter, is the right one. This kind of delusional self-belief is not rewarded in many other spheres of social life, so I write essays.

There is a Turkish saying that one’s home is not where one is born, but where one grows full – doğduğun yer değil, doyduğun yer. Exquisitely written, Root & Branch unsettles neat descriptions of inheritance, belonging and place.

Eda Gunaydin’s essays ask: what are the legacies of migration, apart from loss? And how do we find comfort in where we are?

‘Forget vital or necessary. Root & Branch is knowing and real. In every essay, Eda circles something much bigger than the sum of her experience and thought, as both witness and participant, in which we as readers are left guessing our place.’ — Alison Whittaker