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Open Water (Paperback)
  • Open Water (Paperback)
  • Open Water (Paperback)
  • Open Water (Paperback)
  • Open Water (Paperback)
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Open Water (Paperback) Open Water (Paperback) Open Water (Paperback)

Open Water (Paperback)

(author)
£9.99
Paperback 160 Pages
Published: 03/02/2022
Free UK delivery on orders over £25, otherwise £2.99
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Waterstones Says

A tender and emotionally complex debut about the relationship between two young Black British artists, Open Water shines a light on the ways love and race can be interlinked in modern society.

Shortlisted for the Waterstones Book of the Year 2021

Waterstones Fiction Book of the Month for February 2022

Shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize 2022.

Winner of the Costa First Novel Award 2021

Winner of The British Book Awards 2022 Debut Book of the Year

Shortlisted for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award 2021

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.

Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
ISBN: 9780241448786
Number of pages: 160
Weight: 151 g
Dimensions: 197 x 129 x 12 mm


MEDIA REVIEWS

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. - Nikesh Shukla, editor of THE GOOD IMMIGRANT and author of BROWN BABY

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. - Stylist

An exhilarating new voice in British fiction - Vogue

A short, sharp poetic burst of a novel; it crystallises the torments and heat of young love brilliantly - Andrew McMillan, award-winning author of PHYSICAL

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“A debut to watch out in 2021.”

This is a stunning short novel about a story of falling in love containing not only the happy and delirious parts but the gritty, painful and destructive sections also.

Caleb Azumah Nelson’s novel is hailed as the... More

Hardback edition
2 similar books recommended
Helpful? Upvote 69

“Exquisite”

Thank you to the publishers for this early review copy.
This was my 230th read of 2020 and so far the best book I have read this year, I am clearly going to have to recommend everyone reads this!
So do please pre... More

Hardback edition
Helpful? Upvote 52

“A poetic debut”

This is an amazing debut novel about what it means to be young, Black and British in today's society. He is a photographer, she is a dancer, and they fall in and out of love.

The poetic writing explores racism,... More

Hardback edition
Helpful? Upvote 46

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