Praise for Open Water
“Caleb Azumah Nelson explores the power of being truly seen by another, in a world that often refuses to recognize you at all. An exhilarating new voice in British fiction.” —Vogue (UK)
“A poetic novel about Black identity and first love in the capital from one of Britain’s most exciting young voices.”
—Harper’s Bazaar
“This shattering love story about two Black British artists is a compelling insight into race and masculinity. You’ll remember this author’s name.” —Elle (UK)
“Achingly tender and intensely moving . . . a majestic debut.”
—Cosmopolitan (UK)
“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 . . . an exploration of desire, love, trauma, race and art. Utterly transporting, it’ll leave you weeping and in awe.” —Stylist (UK)
“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.”
—Nadia Owusu, author of Aftershocks
“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.”
—Yaa Gyasi, author of Homegoing
“Like the title suggests, Open Water pulls you in with one great swell, and it holds you there closely. A beautiful and powerful novel about the true and sometimes painful depths of love.”
—Candice Carty-Williams, author of Queenie
“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
“An amazing debut novel. It’s a beautifully narrated, intelligently crafted piece of love that goes deep, and then goes deeper. Let’s hear it for Caleb Azumah Nelson, also known as the future.” —Benjamin Zephaniah, author of
The Life and Rhymes Of Benjamin Zephaniah
“I fell in love at the first line. Open Water is poetry, dance and music, and art, and reading it feels like moving within love, and its iterations through all the above. The book moved me and stilled me, such sumptuous prose, that clarifies whilst also keeping reverence of the sometimes unexplainable facets of love and life and Blackness. I will always remember it, and I will always return to this novel.”
—Bolu Babalola, author of Love in Color
“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.”
—Rowan Hisayo Buchanan, author of Harmless Like You
“A very touching and heartfelt book, passionately written, that brings London to life in a painterly, emotive way. I love its musical richness and espousal of the power of the arts.”
—Diana Evans, author of Ordinary People
Black Cat
New York
Copyright © 2021 by Caleb Azumah Nelson
Cover design by gray318
Cover photographs: (top) © Campbell Addy.
Represented by CLM Agency; (bottom)
© Regan Cameron / Art + Commerce.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Scanning, uploading, and electronic distribution of this book or the facilitation of such without the permission of the publisher is prohibited. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated. Any member of educational institutions wishing to photocopy part or all of the work for classroom use, or anthology, should send inquiries to Grove Atlantic, 154 West 14th Street, New York, NY 10011 or [email protected].
First published in 2021 in the United Kingdom by Viking, an imprint of Penguin Random House UK
Printed in the United States of America
Published simultaneously in Canada
First Grove Atlantic paperback edition: April 2021
ISBN 978-0-8021-5794-2
eISBN 978-0-8021-5795-9
Set in 11/13 pt Dante MT Std
Typeset by Jouve (UK), Milton Keynes
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data is available for this title.
Black Cat
an imprint of Grove Atlantic
154 West 14th Street
New York, NY 10011
Distributed by Publishers Group West
For Es
There was an inevitability about their road towards one another which encouraged meandering along the route.
Zadie Smith
PROLOGUE
The barbershop was strangely quiet. Only the dull buzz of clippers shearing soft scalps. That was before the barber caught you watching her reflection in the mirror as he cut her hair, and saw something in her eyes too. He paused and turned towards you, his dreads like thick beautiful roots dancing with excitement as he spoke:
‘You two are in something. I don’t know what it is, but you guys are in something. Some people call it a relationship, some call it friendship, some call it love, but you two, you two are in something.’
You gazed at each other then with the same open-eyed wonder that keeps startling you at various intervals since you met. The two of you, like headphone wires tangling, caught up in this something. A happy accident. A messy miracle.
You lost her gaze for a moment and your breath quickened, as when a dropped call across a distance gains unexpected gravity. You would soon learn that love made you worry, but it also made you beautiful. Love made you Black, as in, you were most coloured when in her presence. It was not a cause for concern; one must rejoice! You could be yourselves.
Later, walking in the dark, you were overcome. You told her not to look at you because when your gazes meet you cannot help but be honest. Remember Baldwin’s words? I just want to be an honest man and a good writer. Hmm. Honest man. You’re being honest, here, now.
You came here to speak of what it means to love your best friend. Ask: if flexing is being able to say the most in the fewest number of words, is there a greater flex than love? Nowhere to hide, nowhere to go. A direct gaze.
The gaze requires no words at all; it is an honest meeting.
You came here