Open Water
Caleb Azumah Nelson's 2021 debut is a short, lyrical novel set in southeast London and addressed almost entirely in the second person to its unnamed Black male protagonist, a photographer in his late twenties. He meets a Black dancer at a pub one night, and the book traces the slow unfolding of their friendship into something larger over the course of a year, in pubs, on night buses, on bedroom floors, in the ICA, at a Frank Ocean concert. Around that quiet love story Nelson sets the surveillance, the casual police stops, and the everyday wear of being a young Black man in Britain, and it is the collision of those two pressures, the freedom of being seen by the woman he loves and the constant threat of being looked at by the state, that drives the novel. Nelson, a photographer himself, won the Costa First Novel Award and the Dylan Thomas Prize for the book.
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What you might want to know about Open Water
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
A young Black photographer and a young Black dancer meet in a south London pub and slowly fall for each other. Told in second person, the novel listens to a love trying to survive a hostile city.
Yes. Open Water won the 2022 Costa First Novel Award. Caleb Azumah Nelson was 28 when the novel was published, and it became one of the most acclaimed debuts of 2021.
Open Water is short, around 150 pages, and uses second-person narration throughout. The lyrical prose can take adjustment but most readers find it propulsive once the rhythm settles in.
Open Water was written by Caleb Azumah Nelson, published in 2021 by Penguin Books, Limited.
Open Water is 160 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, Open Water takes most readers 2 to 3 hours to finish.
Open Water is a standalone novel by Caleb Azumah Nelson, not part of a series.
Open Water is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.
