REVIEWS
A dance between the cracks
British-Ghanaian writer Caleb Azumah Nelson’s debut novel Open Water was a slam dunk. The South Londoner’s ode to music, aspiration and love met with instant hyperbolic praise, and his trophy cabinet (every young writer has one of course) heaved under the weight of numerous awards. Not one to hang about, just two years later the 29-year-old is publishing his much anticipated follow-up this month.
It’s a positive sign thatshows no evidence of a ‘difficult second album’ panic to prove one’s breadth by moving from earnest soul to heady techno. It is a young love story and a study of Black experience, swaying back and forth from joyful feelings of freedom to fears of entrapment, propelled by the rhythms of gospel, jazz, garage and hip-hop. Stephen has grown up “in song”; from “the shimmer of Black hands in praise” to the ecstatic chaos of “flailing limbs and half-shouted lyrics” in nightclub mosh-pits. His beloved best friend Adeline is
