Open Water

Open Water

Caleb Azumah Nelson • Grove Atlantic

ISBN-10: 0802157947 · ISBN-13: 978‑0802157942 · 2021 · na

Live offer for this book: 1 live copy of this book from $4.42 (as of 2026-09-10).

Dimensions: 8.2 × 5.5 × 0.8 in

Canonical book record

Completeness 51

Cover quality: good

2manybooks editorial

" 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 In a crowded London pub, two young people meet. 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--and both are trying to make their mark in a world 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, and over the course of a year they find their relationship tested by forces beyond their control. Narrated with deep intimacy, Open Water is at once an achingly beautiful love story and a potent insight into race and masculinity that 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, and blistering emotional intelligence, Caleb Azumah Nelson gives a profoundly sensitive portrait of romantic love in all its feverish waves and comforting beauty. This is one of the most essential debut novels of recent years, heralding the arrival of a stellar and prodigious young talent. Caleb Azumah Nelson is a British-Ghanaian writer and photographer, living in South East London. His writing is forthcoming or has been published in THE WHITE REVIEW, LITRO and he was recently shortlisted for the BBC Short Story Award, the Palm Photo Prize and won the People's Choice prize. OPEN WATER is his first novel.

Book metadata

Marketplace observations

1 live copy of this book from $4.42 (as of 2026-09-10).

Contributors

Community tags

Inferred themes

Machine-inferred from catalog text. Not verified subjects.

Community signals

Have: 2 · Like: 4 · Rating: 4.0 / 5 (14)