Open Water

Caleb Azumah Nelson

WINNER OF THE COSTA FIRST NOVEL AWARD 2021

WINNER OF DEBUT NOVEL OF THE YEAR AT THE BRITISH BOOK AWARDS 2022

A No.1 BESTSELLER IN THE TIMES

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.

WINNER OF THE COSTA FIRST NOVEL AWARD

WINNER OF DEBUT NOVEL OF THE YEAR AT THE BRITISH BOOK AWARDS

SHORTLISTED FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES YOUNG WRITER OF THE YEAR AWARD

WINNER OF THE BAD FORM BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD

SHORTLISTED FOR WATERSTONES BOOK OF THE YEAR

LONGLISTED FOR THE DYLAN THOMAS PRIZE, THE DESMOND ELLIOTT PRIZE AND THE GORDON BURN PRIZE

A NATIONAL BOOK AWARD '5 UNDER 35' HONOREE

'A tender and touching love story, beautifully told' Observer

'Hands-down the best debut I've read in years' The Times

'A beautiful and powerful novel about the true and sometimes painful depths of love' Candice Carty-Williams, bestselling author of QUEENIE

'An unforgettable debut... it's Sally Rooney meets Michaela Coel meets Teju Cole' New York Times

'A love song to Black art and thought' Yaa Gyasi, bestselling author of HOMEGOING and TRANSCENDENT KINGDOM