Description
An exhilarating and expansive new novel about fathers and sons, faith and friendship from Caleb Azumah Nelson, the no.1 bestselling, award-winning author of Open Water - available for pre-order now
Beautiful, unforgettable and all-consuming CANDICE CARTY-WILLIAMS, bestselling author of QUEENIE and PEOPLE PERSON
The one thing that can solve Stephen s problems is dancing. Dancing at Church, with his parents and brother, the shimmer of Black hands raised in praise; he might have lost his faith, but he does believe in rhythm. Dancing with his friends, somewhere in a basement with the drums about to drop, while the DJ spins garage cuts. Dancing with his band, making music which speaks not just to the hardships of their lives, but the joys too. Dancing with his best friend Adeline, two-stepping around the living room, crooning and grooving, so close their heads might touch. Dancing alone, at home, to his father s records, uncovering parts of a man he has never truly known.
Stephen has only ever known himself in song. But what becomes of him when the music fades? When his father begins to speak of shame and sacrifice, when his home is no longer his own? How will he find space for himself: a place where he can feel beautiful, a place he might feel free?
Set over the course of three summers in Stephen s life, from London to Ghana and back again, Small Worlds is an exhilarating and expansive novel about the worlds we build for ourselves, the worlds we live, dance and love within.
The rhythms of SMALL WORLDS are a feature of Azumah Nelson s quiet, particular ear and of a profound engagement with music. Nelson writes about closeness, with family, with lovers, with art, as careful, essential labour RAVEN LEILANI, award-winning author of LUSTER
"In his beautiful new novel Nelson summons the sounds of Black Youth, love and discovery to the page. A celebration of the heart NANA KWAME ADJEI-BRENYAH, author of CHAIN-GANG ALL-STARS and FRIDAY BLACK
Caleb Azumah Nelson s writing is touching, heartfelt, and musically rich DIANA EVANS
SMALL WORLDS is a miracle of observation, of attention and attunement. Caleb Azumah Nelson writes prose that is unmatched in its musicality and sensitivity. A gorgeous, rhapsodic, wise novel. KATIE KITAMURA, author of INTIMACIES
A beautiful novel YOMI SODE, author of MANORISM
A wonderful, dexterous work. Caleb Azumah Nelson explores modes of blackness in ways that are enriching and invigorating IRENOSEN OKOJIE
SMALL WORLDS grabs you by the heart and holds tightly, revealing a story as beautiful and as lyrical as the words that adorn the pages SOFIA AKEL
"Caleb Azumah Nelson s writing captures nostalgia-that most essential of sentiments-like no other. I was immersed, transported, and at the same time affirmed in the familiar. Gorgeous Sareeta Domingo, author of THE THREE OF US
About the Author
Caleb Azumah Nelson is a twenty-nine-year old British-Ghanaian writer and photographer living in South East London. His first novel, OPEN WATER, won the Costa First Novel Award and Debut of the Year at the British Book Awards, and was a number-one Times bestseller. It also won the Bad Form Book of the Year Award, a Betty Trask Award and a Somerset Maugham Award, and was shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize, the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award, Waterstones Book of the Year, and longlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize and the Desmond Elliott Prize. He was selected as a National Book Foundation 5 under 35 honoree by Brit Bennett.
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