Open Water

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 only respected for strength; to find safety in love; only to lose it. With gorgeous; soulful intensity; Caleb Azumah Nelson has written the most essential British debut of recent years.