Open Water

Two young people meet in a crowded London pub. Both are Black British, both won scholarships to private schools where they struggled to belong, and both are now artists: he is a photographer and she is a dancer. Each is trying to make a mark in a world that alternately celebrates and rejects them.

Tentatively and tenderly, they fall in love. But two people who seem meant for each other can still be pulled apart by fear and violence, and over the course of a year their relationship is tested by forces beyond their control.

Narrated with deep intimacy, the novel is both a love story and a look at race and masculinity. It asks what it means to be seen only as a Black body, to be vulnerable when you are respected only for your strength, and to find safety in love and then lose it. Open Water is Caleb Azumah Nelson's debut novel.