Join us for an in-conversation event with the extraordinary poet and now novelist Romayn Ante to talk about her debut The Left-Behind Child.

More about the book... a mother forced to leave her family. A daughter forced to reckon with what is left behind. Lipa, Philippines, 2001.

Neneng is 11 when her mother, Rosa, leaves to work as a nurse overseas: abandoning Neneng to care for a distant father, unsettled relatives and rebellious siblings. Their home shatters, and Neneng finds herself facing womanhood alone. From that point on, she vows never to become a nurse, and never to trust her mother again.

But Neneng is more like the strong-minded Rosa than she realises. As Neneng fights to survive and build a new life, the darknesses in the familys past come to light, and the reasons why Rosa needed to leave become clearer. When a twist of fate brings a new mother figure into her orbit, Neneng will come to understand why the profession of nursing matters so deeply to Rosa and when crisis strikes what care means to Neneng.