About the Book
A stunning, shattering debut novel about two Black British artists falling in and out of love
Two young people meet at a pub in South East London. Both are Black British, both won scholarships to private schools where they struggled to belong, both are now artists - he a photographer, she a dancer - trying to make their mark in a city that by turns celebrates and rejects them. Tentatively, tenderly, they fall in love. But two people who seem destined to be together can still be torn apart by fear and violence.
At once an achingly beautiful love story and a potent insight into race and masculinity, Open Water asks what it means to be a person in a world that sees you only as a Black body, to be vulnerable when you are only respected for strength, to find safety in love, only to lose it. With gorgeous, soulful intensity, Caleb Azumah Nelson has written the most essential British debut of recent years.
About the Author :
Caleb Azumah Nelson is a 26-year-old British-Ghanaian writer and photographer living in South East London. His photography was shortlisted for the Palm Photo Prize and won the People's Choice prize. His short story PRAY is shortlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award 2020. OPEN WATER is his first novel.
Review :
A beautiful and powerful novel about the true and sometimes painful depths of love
Open Water is tender poetry, a love song to black art and thought, an exploration of intimacy and vulnerability between two young artists learning to be soft with each other in a world that hardens against black people
This is an amazing debut novel. It's a beautifully narrated, intelligently crafted piece of love that goes deep, then goes deeper. You should read this book. Let's hear it for Caleb Azumah Nelson, also known as the future
Open Water is a very touching and heartfelt book, passionately written, which brings London to life in a painterly, emotive way. I love its musical richness and espousal of the power of the arts - pictures, sounds, movement
Open Water encapsulates what it means to fall in love, explores what it means to move through the world whilst black, and explores the beautiful melding of the two. I will always remember it, and I will always return to this novel. A stunning piece of art.
Open Water is a beautifully, delicately written novel about love, for self and others, about being seen, about vulnerability and mental health. Sentence by sentence, it oozes longing and grace. Caleb is a star in the making.
For those that are missing the tentative depiction of love in Normal People, Caleb Azumah Nelson's Open Water is set to become one of 2021's unmissable books. Utterly transporting, it'll leave you weeping and in awe.
An exhilarating new voice in British fiction
A poetic novel about Black identity and first love in the capital from one of Britain's most exciting young voices
A debut already attracting awards season buzz, this shattering love story about two Black British artists is a compelling insight into race and masculinity. You'll remember this author's name
A short, sharp poetic burst of a novel; it crystallises the torments and heat of young love brilliantly
Open Water is a powerful portrayal of the way that systemic violence can make a person forget softness and vulnerability. It exposes the failure of language to encapsulate feeling and illuminates the love and the anger that rage around the edges of everything
Open Water is about defiance, mourning, art and music. It is an ode to being a full human being in a society that does not see you that way. It is about clinging to love in a world heavy with injustice and violence. There is not a wasted page
Open Water has a delicate, painterly quality while packing a real emotional punch. Caleb Azumah Nelson is a real talent
Open Water is the most mesmerising read. Caleb Azumah Nelson writes voice like a young Baldwin, placing himself both inside and outside the world he describes. Open Water drew me in, hypnotised me and left me, a few hours later, both devastated and a little high. This is the kind of novel which doesn't let go.
Lush, urban, black, British and beautiful
Exquisite
Set to the rhythms of jazz and hip hop, Open Water is an unforgettable story about making art and making a home in another person. In language bursting with grief and joy, Caleb Azumah Nelson has written the ode to Black creativity, love, and survival that we need right now
A brilliant debut whose gentleness and joyfulness are as profound as its examination of the cost of living in a racist society
In this achingly tender and intensely moving debut, two Black artists fall in and out of love in South London. Featuring a stunning opening chapter, vulnerability, loss, masculinity and longing are covered. Written in a second person narrative, this is a majestic debut
A hotly tipped new voice in British fiction.
A stunning debut novel...Written in a unique second-person style, and with profound insight into race and masculinity, it's a tender love story you won't forget
Open Water bristles with intelligence and sensuality ... an irresistible debut with the promise of greatness
Nelson's impressive first novel is tender, lyrical, and all-consuming. . . A truly exceptional debut
One of the most beautiful novels I've ever read, impossible to put down even as it made my heart ache. Just stunning
This short debut novel is both a sweet, painful love story to savour and an account of what it means to live in fear in your own city, to be viewed simply as a black body and never truly seen. Nelson's prose is intense and lyrical, with a pleasing scattering of musical references.
Considering the ways identity shapes experience, Open Water is a soulful meditation on art and love
Extraordinary
Gorgeous
A lyrical modern love story, just 200 pages but brilliant on music and art, race and London life, I enjoyed it hugely.
Caleb's debut is soulful and poetic, celebrating and exploring the varying emotions of a blossoming romance while offering an insight into race and masculinity
A book about Black bodies and strength, vulnerability and fear, with a magnetic romance woven throughout that entrances the reader
Nelson's writing is so accomplished it's hard to believe it comes from a debut author. . . A raw and unvarnished look at what it means to be Black and British
An exciting, ambitious debut... while an elegance of style is a hallmark of Azumah Nelson's storytelling, there is bold risk-taking in his choices too
Caleb Azumah Nelson's debut novel is an intimate, London-set story of two artists falling in love, learning to show tenderness to one another in a society that's anything but. Nelson writes with grace and poignancy; it's a memorable first novel.
A riveting love story... Written in lyrical and propulsive prose, a searing debut
An emotionally intelligent and tender tale of first love. . . what makes it remarkable is its bracing and nuanced exploration of black masculinity. An abundance of cultural references are framed through the perspective of a black British male - one seldom seen in modern British fiction. It is worth questioning why, and whose stories get to be told. Thankfully, Azumah Nelson has told this tale of art, love and black identity. And what a gift it is.'
[A] once-in-a-blue-moon kind of read, a truly remarkable debut from a gifted young wordsmith . . . The novel is at once a celebration of Black love and Black art and expression; thoroughly unforgettable
Lyrical . . . this emotionally rich debut tells a budding love story against backdrops of Black culture, joy, and pain
An unforgettable debut... Azumah Nelson's poetic brilliance, his ability to balance the general and the specific, the ambient and the granular, makes for a salient achievement. It's Sally Rooney meets Michaela Coel meets Teju Cole.
The voice of the narrator feels almost Mrs Dalloway-esque as it moves around London, fluid and swift. Nelson has, with this novella, put down a new, exciting marker for what fiction can achieve
A short, poetic and intellectual meditation on art and a relationship between a young couple
A lyrical love story that celebrates Black artistry
