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Open Water cover art

Open Water

Written by: Caleb Azumah Nelson
Narrated by: Caleb Azumah Nelson
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Publisher's Summary

A stunning, shattering debut novel about two Black 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 respected only for strength, to find safety in love, only to lose it. With gorgeous, soulful intensity, Caleb Azumah Nelson has written the most essential debut of recent years.

©2021 Caleb Azumah Nelson. Recorded by arrangement with Black Cat, an imprint of Grove Atlantic, Inc. (P)2021 Audible, Inc.

What listeners say about Open Water

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Moving and beautifully written

I equally loved this story and how it was written. Beautiful devices and words. The second person narration had me listening to certain parts again and again.

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That we all might find our way out into Open Water

This book broke my heart and filled it back up again with love and music and tenderness in the face of grief and injustice.

Thank you!
Michelle

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